US imposes new tariffs on 60 trading partners over forced labour

The United States has imposed tariffs ranging from 10% to 12.5% on imports from 60 major trading partners, following a determination by the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) regarding enforcement failures in enforcing forced labour restrictions.

The measures were announced by the office of U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, acting under the direction of President Donald Trump.

“Today, Ambassador Jamieson Greer took final action, at the direction of President Trump, in the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative’s (USTR) Section 301 Investigations into the Acts, Policies, and Practices of Various Economies Related to the Failure to Impose and Effectively Enforce a Prohibition on the Importation of Goods Produced with Forced Labor by imposing a 10% or 12.5% tariff on 60 trading partners, subject to certain product exemptions,” the statement said.

According to the USTR, a baseline tariff rate of 10% will apply to 17 countries that have already enacted bans on imports of goods produced using forced labour. These include Türkiye, China, the European Union, Kazakhstan, the United Kingdom, Pakistan, Israel, Qatar, India, Iraq, Canada and Mexico, among others.

For certain goods originating from the European Union, Japan, South Korea and Switzerland that do not qualify for exemptions, the tariff rate will be set at either 10% or 12.5%, adjusted downward by the applicable most-favoured-nation (MFN) tariff rates.

Meanwhile, the maximum base tariff rate will rise by 2.5 percentage points, to 12.5%, for the remaining economies covered by the investigation that have not met Washington’s conditions regarding enforcement measures.

The newly announced tariffs will replace the temporary global tariff rate of 10% that the Trump administration introduced in February.

By Tamilla Hasanova