Diamond Foundry announces lawsuit against US Government

The company released a statement criticising the US government for trade tariffs put in place against China during the Trump administration.

The tariffs penalise businesses for using diamond polishing services in China to a degree which Diamond Foundry states exceeds the cost of the manufacturing service itself.

No changes have been made to the tariff since the transfer between the Trump administration and the Biden administration in the US and a statement by Diamond Foundry said that legal action was now required.

“When Trump introduced trade tariffs against China in four, ever more aggressive tranches, the polishing of diamonds in China was included with a penalty that exceeds the cost of the contract manufacturing service added in China.

“This egregious amount stems from the fact that the tariff is applied as a percentage of the market value of the polished diamond re-imported — rather than the value of the polishing contract service (which itself turns out less than the tariff for diamonds).”

It claims that “the Biden administration adopted these Trump tariffs without revisiting them. We do not believe that doubling the cost of a product or service of a peaceful country is appropriate for the United States government to effect overnight, or any good trade policy.

“After thorough review, we have therefore taken legal action. The lawsuit action we are taking is largely based on a technicality of how Trump got specific timelines wrong but so be it. Our lawsuit largely follows what Tesla and others have been claiming as well.”

Diamond Foundry was established in 2012 by Martin Roscheisen and Jeremy Scholz and is a producer of lab-created diamonds which are grown using plasma physics in a San Francisco laboratory.

In the lead up to the lawsuit announcement, Diamond Foundry had been publicly critical of the US approach to sanctioning Russia on both a corporate and governmental level. On Twitter in February, Diamond Foundry criticised Brilliant Earth, among many US retailers, for selling diamonds sourced in Russia, primary by Alrosa, the nation’s biggest mining company.

The company’s postion was that the current tariffs make doing business for local manufacturers too difficult with little justification.

“In general we believe the United States government should work to support domestic manufacturers like Diamond Foundry as opposed to making life difficult for them.

“No diamond producer in India or Russia is exposed to these Trump/Biden tariffs.

“Russian diamonds have been okay to import tariff free whereas polishing in China was massively penalised. And of course now with the sanctions in effect, it still remains to be seen what happens to all these diamonds mined in Russia that are then polished in India – where they thus become India-origin diamonds according to the US Trade Office.”

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