Testimony of Marty Davis at Section 301 Committee Investigation Related to Excess Capacity

Good afternoon. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today.

My name is Marty Davis. I’m the owner and manager of Cambria, a family-owned, American-made business. We produce 100% of our quartz surfaces at our Minnesota facility, using American workers, and in full compliance with U.S. law. Our quartz surfaces are fabricated into countertops in thousands of homes and businesses across the country.

Cambria has no interest in protectionism, or a “Buy American, because it’s American” effort; we find that frankly, un-American! Nor do we have any interest in artificially suppressing competition. As I've suggested before, the very thought of protectionism is offensive to me and my company, and refutes the great virtues of capitalism that we hold so earnestly in American enterprise!

The economic trade crisis in America is largely born of a global trading system where rogue foreign governments—rather than free and fair markets—determine through illegal manipulation which companies and countries survive and thrive. This action by this commission will determine whether the U.S. will continue to accommodate and reward cheating by foreign governments, thereby eliminating American workers, American manufacturing, and American prosperity!

The quartz surface industry is a textbook example of the problem Section 301 solves. It is a perfect paradigm in depicting the tremendous virtues of the Trump Trade Doctrine and its righteous and noble mission to ensure free and fair trade, and a thriving free enterprise market in America!

In the economies under investigation—China, and increasingly India, Vietnam, and Thailand—governments have orchestrated schemes within their government policies that deliberately create and preserve manufacturing capacity regardless of market need. That capacity is supported by subsidized financing, cheap or free land, below-market energy and utilities, weak regulatory enforcement, egregious shipping/transport subsidies, and immoral and unlawful labor practices that collapse costs in ways no law-abiding company can match.

This excess capacity does not correct itself. It expands on itself.

We have seen this pattern before. In solar manufacturing, massive state-backed capacity in China far exceeded global demand. When U.S. trade laws were enforced, that capacity did not shut down—it moved. Through Belt and Road–backed investments, Chinese firms shifted production to countries like Vietnam and Thailand, relying on Chinese partnerships, financing, equipment, and upstream inputs.

Ultimately, U.S. authorities determined those facilities remained subsidized through cross-border support and imposed duties reaching as high as 3,500 percent. That was excess capacity exported by policy, not by markets. THAT IS GLOBAL ECONOMIC WARFARE!

Same in our industry– From 2020 to 2024, U.S. demand for quartz products grew by more than 60 percent. Under normal market conditions, domestic production would rise alongside demand.

Instead, U.S. production fell—declining more than 17 percent during that period and falling again in 2025—while imports surged by more than 200 percent.

That outcome was a sophisticated and predatory scheme to hijack a newly blossoming, exploding American quartz manufacturing industry. The Chinese, Thailand, Indian and Vietnamese quartz surfacing manufacturing  have massive installed capacity and continue expanding with unprecedented government support. Those conditions have become worse.

The impact on U.S. investment is real.

Several years ago, Cambria was prepared to invest more than $150 million to expand production in Minnesota and hire hundreds of additional American workers. The customer demand had been generated. We had capital investment in place. We were ready. We halted the project.

Not because we could not compete head-to-head with other companies—but because our private business cannot compete against the entirety of a foreign government that manipulates all aspects of free market economics to adulterate the fair competition we seek.

Enforcing trade law does not increase prices over the long-term. It's just bunk. US importers take huge cuts, and the domestic market loses great economic revenue in the local economy. Domestic production creates a huge local economic net plus, after a short time of adjustment. It's so obvious.

Artificial, adulterated economics—created by government subsidies, and subsidizing huge excess capacity—impose massive falsely derived cost competition burdens on American companies. They eviscerate good-paying middle-class jobs, hollow out supply chains, and create long-term dependence on companies from often hostile, corrupt foreign governments. We must not allow this to happen.

Lest we forget, why is it they do this? It's simple: to keep their people busy in lands of limited prosperity, often born of corrupt communist, fascist, or quasi-fascist governments  that do not produce middle-class prosperity. 

So what must they do? STEAL OURS! Hijack the American middle-class prosperity born of our free and fair enterprise in America.--- They must, to feed their economic calamity and poverty;... keep their people busy or have a revolution. And they do it all on the backs of the prosperous American middle-class manufacturing worker, eliminating the job of the very customer they seek to sell their foreign dumped products to.

Someday, such hijacking will impoverish that American middle-class customer/worker. It already has in much of urban America; in Chicago, Detroit, Philly, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Canton, Dayton, Des Moines, Moline, and throughout the entire belly of this nation and beyond. In American cities where thriving U.S. manufacturing and industrious innovation were born, and prosperous middle-class workers helped build our nation through multiple generations. This isn't a partisan matter, democrat or Republican, this is an American matter, and vital to our future as a  nation.

Think about this: when their people are jobless, they have revolutions; when our people are jobless, we have crime! It's pretty simple. Beijing has had no revolution since the WTO entry of 2001, and since, 4,000,000 US manufacturing jobs were lost at home. In urban America, in the rust belt of our nation, we now have such crime—crime that results from American middle-class workers losing their jobs and now, they are no longer busy— busy pursuing their dreams, through  their good work, ….in the cities of America!

Section 301 exists precisely for this predatory foreign trade reality. When foreign excess capacity is systemic, policy-driven, and exported, it is not merely unfair—it is unacceptable under the statute, and it eviscerates U.S. commerce, greatly damages U.S. companies, and costs American workers their jobs!

AS I HAVE TESTIFIED TO HERE BEFORE, TARIFFS ARE A VITAL, CRITICAL TRADE ENFORCEMENT TOOL FOR THE PRESIDENT AND HIS ADMINISTRATION!

TARIFFS ARE NOT A TAX. THAT IS JUST NONSENSE! TARIFFS ARE A NON-PARTISAN, AMERICA FIRST, FREE AND FAIR TRADE, RIGHTEOUS HAMMER ON CHEATERS, AND GOVERNMENTS HARMING AMERICA.

Cambria is not asking the U.S. government to pick winners.

We are asking our government to stand up to this global economic warfare and to ensure a level playing field where American businesses and American workers have the opportunity to compete fairly against foreign businesses and foreign workers.

Cambria stands ready to invest, to hire, and to compete.

All we ask is a level playing field—governed by FREE AND FAIR TRADE.

We must use the tariff as the critical trade enforcement tool it is. Cheating America will not happen; it will not work any longer! As Herb Brooks, the great Minnesota Olympic hockey coach, so aptly said, “I'm sick of them, their time is over. It's our time!”

Well, here too, it is! It’s America’s time. We are done being kicked around by the rogue, illegal government trading regimes of the world.

You have the righteous instrument of the tariff; let us use it properly! Impose the tariffs and quotas vigorously, prosecute trade fraud, and let the world compete in our U.S. markets with great products—products born of free and fair trade, and of a level playing field!

Thank you for your attention to this matter!

I look forward to your questions.