US imposes new tariffs over forced labor enforcement

The United States will impose new tariffs Friday on imports from dozens of trading partners, accusing them of failing to block goods made with forced labor and reviving a broad tariff regime after a Supreme Court setback for President Donald Trump’s trade agenda.

The duties will range from 10% to 12.5% and apply to economies that account for nearly all U.S. imports, including the European Union, the United Kingdom, Canada, Mexico, Japan, India, China and Brazil. NPR reported that the tariffs cover 60 countries accounting for 99% of U.S. imports. The Guardian, citing a draft Federal Register notice, reported that the U.S. Trade Representative identified 60 investigations covering 54 economies plus six others, and that because the European Union has 27 member states, a total of 86 nations are subject to the new duties.

U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said the tariffs were imposed under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, which allows the president to levy import taxes or other sanctions against countries found to engage in unfair trade practices.

“The United States has had a forced labor import ban for nearly a century, and rigorously enforces it; it’s well past time for our trading partners to do the same,” Greer said. “Today’s action will begin to correct what is both a human rights abuse and distortive trade practice to improve the welfare of workers everywhere.”

The new tariffs take effect as temporary 10% worldwide tariffs expire at 12:01 a.m. Friday. Trump turned to those temporary levies after the Supreme Court ruled in February that his earlier tariffs under the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act were not authorized. The decision forced the administration to refund importers that had paid those duties. Trump had argued that the U.S. trade deficit amounted to a national emergency.

Some goods will be exempt from the new tariffs, including oil, gas and fertilizer, NPR reported. Products that qualify for duty-free status under the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement will also be spared. A senior administration official told NPR that some countries tightened forced labor enforcement after the tariffs were proposed last month and qualified for lower rates; India’s tariff, for example, was reduced from an initially proposed 12.5% to 10%.

The Guardian reported that Brazil rejected the U.S. finding and called the new 12.5% tariff on Brazilian imports “completely arbitrary and unjustified.” President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s government said it would begin a process to impose retaliatory tariffs on U.S. goods. Brazil said it had cooperated with the U.S. investigation and provided extensive documentation of its laws and customs actions against forced-labor imports.

“Lacking a domestic legal basis to support its protectionist trade policy,” Brazil’s government said, the Trump administration “chose to manipulate an issue central to human rights and the struggle of workers worldwide in order to accuse 59 countries and the European Union of unfair practices.”

Economists warn tariffs can raise prices for everyday goods because importers typically pay the taxes and often pass costs to consumers. The White House says the measures are needed to protect American workers and ensure fair competition.

Forced labor is defined by the International Labor Organization as work or service extracted under threat of penalty and not offered voluntarily. The ILO estimated that 27.6 million people were in forced labor worldwide on any given day in 2021.

Human rights advocates told NPR the tariffs could draw attention to forced labor, though some raised concerns about implementation. Martina Vandenberg, founder and president of The Human Trafficking Legal Center, said import bans can be “a potentially effective tool” but warned: “Our concern is that the import bans will be thin slips of paper with no enforcement.”

More tariffs could follow. The U.S. Trade Representative is investigating 16 countries, accounting for about 70% of U.S. imports, over claims that manufacturing overcapacity has pushed down prices and disadvantaged U.S. companies.