US ceramic tile manufacturers petition anti-dumping and countervailing duties on Indian Imports

The announcement by TCNA came on April 19th, right on the eve of the opening of Coverings.

The announcement came on April 19th, right on the eve of the opening of Coverings, the largest North American exhibition for ceramic tiles and stone, that was held in Atlanta last week.

And it was for sure the hot news during the show, discussed and commented around the pavilions by most – if not all - US and foreign exhibitors.

As TCNA Tile Council of North America communicated, “the 9 U.S. ceramic tile manufacturers which form the Coalition for Fair Trade in Ceramic Tile (representing 90% of US tile production), have filed anti-dumping and countervailing duty petitions with the Federal Government seeking the imposition of substantial tariffs on imports of ceramic tile from India to remedy unfairly low-priced imports that have injured domestic manufacturers and flooded the market with uncertified porcelain tiles”.

Specifically, the industry’s anti-dumping petition seeks the imposition of tariffs estimated between 408% to 828%. The countervailing duty (or anti-subsidy) petition seeks the imposition of additional tariffs to remedy the impact of numerous Indian government subsidies.

As stated by TCNA Executive Director, Eric Astrachan, “American tile manufacturers have always welcomed fair competition from imports. In fact, U.S. manufacturers have plentiful deposits of clay and feldspar, an efficient and well-respected labor force, local community support, state-of-the-art equipment, and affordable energy – so much so that major exporters from Italy, Spain, Brazil, Mexico, and China have built facilities in the U.S. from which to compete on a global scale. However, Indian tile producers enjoy substantial government subsidies, which in conjunction with selling excess capacity at dumped prices, has allowed them to flood the U.S. market. Over the last 10 years, sales of tile from India have increased from a mere 344,000 square feet (32,000 m2) in 2013 to nearly 405 million square feet (37.6 million m2) by the end of 2023. Our domestic manufacturers had no alternative but to petition the Federal Government for relief from these unjust trading practices. The vitality of the U.S. industry and the livelihoods of thousands of employees and their families within our member companies depend on it."

With a 42.6% growth on the previous year, in 2023 India was the major exporting country to the US in volume, with a 20.3% share of total US tile imports, and one of the very few to register a positive percentage variation of its sales.

According to Barnes & Thornburg, trade counsel for the Coalition for Fair Trade in Ceramic Tile, as a result of these petitions, the Federal Government will launch an investigation, and if it finds that Indian imports are unfairly traded and have injured or threaten to injure U.S. tile manufacturers, the Government will impose tariffs on Indian tile imports. The Government would first impose preliminary tariffs in a few months and would impose final tariffs at the conclusion of its investigation in approximately 16 months.

The perfect timing of TCNA announcement (just a couple of days before the most important ceramic tile exhibition in the US, with several Indian ceramic tile manufacturers exhibiting) is understandable since such final tariffs will be applied retroactively to the date of preliminary tariffs, and possibly to the date of initiation, that is April 2024.