Anil Taneja,
Director,
LITOSonline.com
NOTE: Updates to the original article, published on 3 April 2025.
July 31, 2025. A 25% tariff plus indefined penalties has been announced by the US on imports from India. But the statement by Mr Trump also says negotiations are still continuing.
It now seems that the Brazilian exports of quartzite (which forms the main exports to USA) will, due to its customs classification, be extent of the 50% tariffs imposed on most imports from Brazil. There is still no clarity regarding the imports of granite and marble from Brazil.
July 27, 2025. As per the trade agreement reached between EU and USA, tariffs of 15% will be imposed on imports of most products, presumably this includes natural stone.
July 13, 2025. The US has threatened to impose tariffs of 30% on imports from EU and México starting 1 August 2025. This creates new problems for importers in USA (along with stone exporters of processed stone from Brazil) who, just 3 days back suffered a big blow due to the 50% tariffs imposed. In a space of a few hours following this announcement many US importers have put on hold their orders placed from Brazil. Even if these tariffs are reduced in a few days or weeks time (something which no one knows or can predict), tremendous damage will already have been done to the stone companies. For example, the almost total dependence on the US market means sales of Brazilian companies have come to an almost complete halt, severe financial problems will soon emerge, and, it is feared, many companies will be drastically reducing the number of people employed, and many could also close down. Many American stone importers have already stated that raising prices is not a realistic option given the magnitude of the increase in tariffs. How the tariffs of 30 % on EU products will affect business will be known soon, the Italian companies will take the biggest hit, followed by the Greek companies, if this threat of 30% tariffs starting 1 August 25 goes through.
July 9, 2025. The USA has announced a 50% tariffs on products from Brazil. If this decision holds it can have a devastating effect on the Brazilian stone industry which depends heavily on the US market. About 60% of exports of stone are destined to USA.
July 2, 2025. USA has come to a trade agreement with Vietnam. 20% tariffs will be applied to goods from the Asian country and the rates will be 40% in case of transhipment.
May 30, 2025 An appeals court has temporarily reinstated the US administration tariffs that had been blocked by a US court only a day earlier, on 28 May 2025. In effect this means the heavy tariffs on China remain and so do the tariffs of 10% that had been imposed on most countries for most goods and which most stone companies had now expected to pay.
May 28, 2025. A US court has blocked the tariffs imposed by the Trump administration. For the stone industry this basically means the 10 % universal tariffs imposed on most goods will, for now, not taken effect. The US administration has appealed against this ruling.
May 26, 2025. The US administration has suspended its decision to impose 50% tariffs on most products from EU starting 1 June 2025 and extended the deadline for negotiations till 9 July.
May 23, 2025. The US administration has announced that tariffs of 50% will be imposed on most products starting 1 June 2025. These new tariffs, if implemented, will effectively kill all most exports of stone from South European countries.
May 12, 2025. Changes again! The suspension of tariffs between US and China for 90 days means imports of natural stone from China will now be subject to 30% duties. (On quartz, the duties remain 300+%). But the window for placing orders and getting deliveries is very short. What happens after 90 days? The uncertainty remains.
April 16, 2025. The uncertainties resulting from the tariff wars is creating changes in our MORALEMETER. As of now, this is how it looks: https://www.litosonline.com/en/content/moralemeter
April 11, 2025. The original article was published a few hours after the tariffs were announced by the US administration on 2 April, 2025. However, on 9 April the administration announced a 90 day pause on these tariffs. As of today the prevailing tariffs are 10% on almost every country and 145% on China, a vastly different situation.
April 3, 2025
It is perhaps too early to make firm judgements, only a few hours after the Trump administration has launched a tariffs war on rest of the world. Much could change, and soon. There will probably be retaliation soon by other countries and by the EU. But we should also expect negotiations behind closed doors to take place too, and, hopefully, some kind of agreements and concessions so that the world economy does not enter a recession.
For now this is how the situation looks like with the new tariffs imposed by USA:
Brazil and Turkey, with a 10% duty imposed on them, have got away lightly. Quartzite exporters and marble exporters can handle these increased duties.
Vietnam was becoming a big exporter of quartz to USA, a 46% duty will hit it badly.
China was already facing high duties, now it will be practically out of the US market.
No mention of Egypt- so its exports should not be affected.
India has been hit with 26%, everything, quartz, porcelain, granite, will be hit hard but its competitors in Far East countries have been hit even harder.
20% on EU surely hits the Italians and Greeks exporters. Also the porcelain and quartz exporters stand to lose competitiveness.
Perhaps more important, with inflation in USA likely to shoot up, cost of building materials having increased, the much anticipated construction boom will fizzle out. New housing prices, already high, will become even more unaffordable. Interest rates in US will surely increase. Overall demand will decrease. Cash flow pressures on US importers of stone in USA will increase. It is possible many smaller importers will go bankrupt, if the US market slows down considerably.
In other words, unless the new tariffs are removed or lowered considerably, and soon, big trouble lies ahead.
Everyone will be looking for alternative markets. But where are they? Most likely the local market in India will be only slightly affected, so demand there should remain stable.
