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The Trump administration has announced sweeping new trade tariffs of 10% and 12.5% on goods from 60 trading partners within hours of a temporary 10% global tariff expiring.
The tariffs were imposed under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, allowing the White House to target virtually all US imports, including from the EU and China, using allegations that trading partners were not rigorously enforcing forced labour bans
In an announcement, signed by President Donald Trump and published last night in a Federal Register notice, the US imposed a 10% duty on goods of Argentina, Bangladesh, Britain, Cambodia, Canada, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, India, Indonesia, Jordan, Malaysia, Mexico, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Trinidad and Tobago.
The European Union, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and Switzerland were assigned rates that totalled 10% or 12.5%.
The notice said that the United States Trade Representative had initiated investigations in March into the acts, policies, and practices of 60 economies to examine whether any of the economies subject to these investigations fail to prohibit or to effectively enforce a prohibition on the importation of goods produced wholly or in part with forced labor and whether the failure is unreasonable or discriminatory and burdens or restricts U.S. commerce.
In relation to the European Union, the notice said it was one of a group attracting Most-Favored Nation tariffs – which the Trump administration said would be “appropriate to encourage these economies to fulfill commitments regarding forced labor import prohibitions or to enact or effectively enforce such a prohibition.”
“The United States has had a forced labour import ban for nearly a century, and rigorously enforces it. It’s well past time for our trading partners to do the same,” US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said in a statement.
“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.”
European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said that member states viewed the new tariffs as a shock.
“If you compare our labor laws to the ones of the United States, I mean, we have paid vacations, we have very good labour conditions for our employees, so it’s not really grounded,” she told Reuters.
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