Monument, gravestone makers deal with tariffs and cremations
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John Dioguardi’s family has been creating custom headstones and other memorial markers for the Roman Monument in Western Pennsylvania for nearly a century. Lately he’s been wondering how much time he has left on his job.
Dioguardi has been trying to adapt for more than a decade as a rise in cremations has negatively impacted demand for the traditional grave markers that have become synonymous with his business. They’ve been dealt another blow this year: President Donald Trump’s broad, steep tariffs that have increased the cost of granite coming into American cemeteries from around the world.
“I hope everything goes well,” Dioguardi said. “I have no idea if it will happen or not.”
Roman Monument is part of a network of small, family-run companies that produce memorialization products that face the dual challenges of taxation and cremation. Members of the blue-collar sector struggle to survive in the face of social, political and economic changes that disrupt their livelihoods.
‘A gut punch’
As Dioguardi has watched the White House’s trade relationship with China fluctuate in recent months, it has shifted two-thirds of its supply chain out of the Asian country. Most went to India, which saw a relatively lower tariff rate for most of the year.
Craftsman working with compressed air on a tombstone.
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Dioguardi said it would likely be more expensive to bring production to the U.S. even with the new tariffs because of higher labor costs. There’s another simple reason to look internationally: Some types of granite, like the multicolored aurora found in India, come only from certain regions abroad.
“God gave some delicious foods to different parts of the world,” Dioguardi said. “There is nothing like this in our country.”
Trump’s tariffs have changed the course of the industry and left businesses struggling to figure out how to reduce additional costs.
In September 2024, Jim Milano of Milano Monuments paid approximately 29% duty and taxes on a container arriving at his Cleveland-based business from China. A year later, this rate almost doubled to 59%.
Communicate with memorial monument suppliers about adding an addendum to large orders, telling buyers that the price may be adjusted later depending on tariff rates changing. For now, Milano said he and many of his colleagues are covering the tariffs out of pocket. As a result, his salary was cut.
“A lot of crazy things have come up in the last few years,” said Milano, whose business has been in operation for half a century. “But this tariff thing was like a gut punch.”
In recent months, Milan has found himself rushing to contact his order controller when he sees a headline about higher duties to ensure his containers are swamped before they come into effect.
Milan’s showroom and a monument made by the business.
Courtesy: Jim Milano
Because the monument industry produces custom products, it often operates with lead times of several weeks or months. If the White House adjusts trade policy between when monument products are first ordered by customers and when granite is shipped to the United States, importers could see significantly different tax rates.
“The uncertainty part is the hardest part we deal with,” said Nathan Lange, president of Monument Builders of North America, a trade group that represents hundreds of businesses with an average lifespan of more than seven decades.
Granite wholesalers similarly needed to readjust their sales practices. Parthi Damo, chief operations officer at Kentucky-based PS Granite He said they postponed their annual marketing materials to next year because they were unsure whether tariff rates would change again, which meant prices would have to be adjusted. Damo said they may switch to creating new documents every 60 days if they need to continue updating prices.
Trump, foreign countries or in some cases Companies that import their products must eat the tariffs. Data shows that businesses largely absorb cost increases in the short term.
Blank stone tombstones and grave slabs in granite workshop in open countryside.
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But smaller margins and lower volumes make it harder to cover costs than big retailers, monument creators said. Because businesses operate with shoppers feeling emotions around death, industry members say they need to be particularly sensitive when deciding whether to pass costs on to consumers.
“It’s difficult,” Milano said. “We can’t turn to a grieving family and say, ‘You know what, we have to add another $1,000 in memory of your family to cover the tariffs.'”
A changing business
Even before tariffs rose, the industry was busy reorienting itself for a future with fewer traditional funerals.
The U.S. five-year cremation rate has risen from less than 40 percent fifteen years ago to more than 60 percent in 2024, according to the Cremation Association of North America. The organization predicts that more than two in three bodies will be cremated in the average year between 2025 and 2029.
To stimulate demand for cemetery products, Dioguardi considered expanding its footprint around its headquarters in Pennsylvania; This broader trend has led to a wave of acquisitions in the industry, he said. Dioguardi and his colleagues highlighted alternatives such as pedestal monuments for people remembering cremated loved ones.
He has also worked on less traditional memorials: Dioguardi recently helped erect a “rainbow bridge” monument at a cemetery containing the ashes of pets.
“It has drastically changed our cremation business,” Dioguardi said. “It created new opportunities. It also closed other doors.”
If monument builders have to raise prices to account for tariffs, Milano worries that could push more consumers to opt for cremations. Beyond granite, taxes on manufacturing materials also reduce profits, he said.
Certainly Canada’s memorial industry is feeling the heat more intensely, with the five-year average for cremations expected to exceed 80%. Dioguardi said that the granite producers he works with in America’s northern neighbor did not increase prices due to tariffs due to the contraction in domestic demand.
Dioguardi said the family operation should be on solid ground for another decade, but he questions whether it can exist in its current form beyond that. At the same time, the 75-year-old knows the fate of the business depends in part on whether people want their loved ones to be commemorated in any way.
Comparing the pyramids favored by the Egyptians to today’s trend of scattering ashes in an unmarked location, Dioguardi isn’t so sure. He and other industry members say part of the challenge is proving that any souvenir product is worth the investment.
“Forget building pyramids,” Dioguardi said. “I don’t even know if they want pebbles.”
