Comment from Phillips, Charles

Greetings, My name is Charles Phillips and I am one of the owners of ZALL Enterprises Inc. located in Austin, Texas. We are in the stone fabrication business and have been fabricating countertops for over 25 years. We operate our business under the trade name AAA Countertops and my family and I bought the business approximately 10 years ago. We fabricate a variety of stone surfaces including granite, quartz, marble, porcelain, quartzite, and a variety of others. We currently have 29 employees, including five family members. We also employee several sub-contractors that have employees of their own. Our peak employment was 48 employees a few years ago but the slowdown in housing has led to reductions in our employee count. I am writing to make comment on the proposed Section 201 quotas and tariffs on imported quartz products. About 50% of our current sales are derived from the sale of quartz and most of our quartz is imported from either Spain or India. The prices for imported quartz are generally less than comparable products manufactured in the United States and this allows us to keep pricing down to end users. Our end users are new home builders, remodeling contractors, and individuals. I have two major concerns with the proposed quotas and tariffs. The first is that if implemented, prices will rise not just for imported quartz but the US manufactures of quartz will likely raise their prices as well to take advantage of the higher prices charged by their importing competitors. This will force us to raise our prices to our customers who will, in turn, raise prices to home buyers. This will have a detrimental effect on a housing market that has been struggling for many years and is currently in a deficit of millions of homes across the United States. My second concern is that if implemented, US domestic manufactures of quartz will be unable to fulfill demand, thus resulting in quota triggers and even higher tariffs. Which leads to the same place as discussed above, high prices for end users which is damaging to an already troubled housing market. Bottom line, the US housing market is not in a good place and additional price increases are not a move in the right direction. It is also worth noting that the US stone fabrication industry, collectively, employees tens of thousands of employees throughout the United States. Likely thousands more than the aggregated number of employees of the US quartz manufacturing industry. Price increases will have an effect on those employees, and it will not be a good one. I would be happy to further discuss this with anyone who may like to hear from a person that is in the trenches of the stone fabrication industry on a daily basis. I can be reached at my office 512-243-6821 or via email at chuck@aaacountertops.com Thank you for your consideration, Charles Phillips ZALL Enterprises Inc.