Testimony of Marty Davis at Section 301 Committee Investigation Related to Forced Labor

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

My name is Marty Davis. I’m the owner and manager of Cambria, a family-owned, American-made business. 

We are not here today as protectionists. We do not believe in protectionism or economic isolationism. We, too at Cambria, do not believe that one should buy American, just because it’s American, frankly… that’s un-American, and certainly not the paradigm of capitalism that built this great country. 

We simply need free and fair trade that ensures a level playing field and real competition.

This is about foreign governments, cheating—gaming the system and predatorily hijacking the prosperity of the United States economy and of U.S. manufacturers… a U.S. economy that is built on free enterprise and American capitalism. COMPETITION, FAIR COMPETITION.

Cambria expects—and welcomes competition from companies around the world.

What American manufacturers cannot compete against are foreign governments and foreign treasuries, who comprehensively and with great sophistication— game their local economics—this is all keenly orchestrated with many instruments of violation, including coerced labor, exploitation of children, confiscated wages, and refusal to enforce their own laws or uphold basic human rights.

American workers and individual American companies cannot compete against a foreign government treasury—the government and treasury, for example, of China. It’s not possible.

That is not free trade—it is not fair trade!

In reality, this is targeted economic warfare on a global scale.

You simply cannot have free trade without fair trade — it’s an oxymoron! 

Back in 2015, Cambria was intending to invest more than $150 million in capital factory expansion and hire hundreds of additional American workers. That expansion had to be paused until we achieved relief in the form of free and fair trade  —not because we couldn’t compete with other individual companies, or that our individual U.S. workers couldn’t compete with these foreign workers, but because a U.S. company and its workers cannot compete with the entirety of the Chinese treasury in partnership with private foreign companies and crafty U.S. importers, who together parlay these sophisticated trade violating schemes throughout American markets. 

Demand for quartz surface products increased by 62.6% from 2020 to 2024. Yet domestic production declined by 17.2%—from 39.5 million square feet in 2020 to 32.7 million square feet in 2024—and declined another 0.7% in 2025.

This has caused substantial US factory slowdowns and in one case, the closing of a new $100 million factory in Georgia, with two more on the brink of shutdown.

This is the result when forced labor is actively promoted and facilitated in global supply chains.

When foreign governments fail to enforce prohibitions on forced labor, they are intentionally gaming the marketplace to support their form of ineffective government —again,  highjacking free and fair market prosperity.  

Forced labor dilutes any reality of free and fair trade! 

The result, foreign companies:
a. sell below market
b. dump products into the US from artificial economics
c. maintain excess capacity
d. flood the free enterprise U.S. market
e. And push law-abiding American manufacturers out of business.

They cheat on all levels of fair trade 

Section 301 was designed for exactly this kind of conduct—to give the President authority to act when governments predatorily refuse to play by the rules.

Some argue that enforcing trade laws raises prices.

Allowing illegal trade damages the entire US GDP by viscerating domestic manufacturing, greatly reducing U.S. investment, and eliminating good paying middle-class jobs. 

Free markets only work when:
a. labor is voluntary
b. costs are born of free & fair competition
c. prices are market-based
d. And the laws are enforced.

That’s really what tariffs are, a vital, critical U.S. trade enforcement tool for the President and his administration! 

Tariffs are not a tax, what complete nonsense! They enforce and ensure fair trade to protect free trade!

I’ll close with this.

Cambria and American quartz manufacturers are not here to curry favor.

We are asking for free and fair competition—A LEVEL PLAYING FIELD!

For family-owned American companies like ours, the consequences of unfair foreign trade create a devastating result.

We are proud— eager— to invest in American workers and safe working conditions. We make the necessary investments to engage in business responsibly—with a sustained investment that reflects our values as a family-owned, American-made company and ensures the quality our employees deliver every day to our customers.

If you enforce the law—if you stop forced labor from functioning as an implicit subsidy—you will protect American workers, honest foreign producers, and the integrity of global trade.

You have the tools: impose the tariffs and the quotas, detain the goods made with forced labor, vigorously prosecute trade fraud, and dominate our U.S. markets with products born of free and fair trade!

If we do not use the tariff as the critical trade enforcement tool it is, the message to the world is simple:

Cheating America pays. Adherence to US trade law and the requirements  of WTO trading status on a permanent basis, DO NOT!

The result— American manufacturers, American workers, and their families will suffer immeasurably! They already have!

Thank you for your attention to this matter! 

I very much look forward to your questions.