According to a report from The Associated Press, the Trump administration is proposing double-digit tariffs on products from dozens of major U.S. trading partners after an investigation into imports of goods allegedly made with forced labor.
Under the proposal released in Washington late Tuesday, 16 economies — including Canada, Mexico, the European Union, Taiwan and the United Kingdom — would face 10% levies for allegedly failing to enforce bans on forced labor. Dozens of others — including China, Japan, India, South Korea and Switzerland — would be hit with 12.5% import taxes.
The tariffs are part of President Donald Trump’s effort to replace revenue lost when the U.S. Supreme Court struck down sweeping global tariffs he’d imposed last year. This latest barrage is likely to unsettle key trading partners that have been hit been hit with waves of tariffs since Trump returned to the White House early last year.
“The failure of our most important trading partners to address the importation of goods made with forced labor is unacceptable,” U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said in a statement. “This creates a dynamic where American workers are forced to compete globally on an unlevel playing field.’’
He added that “each of our trading partners must do more to ensure that trade does not perversely encourage and entrench forced labor globally.”
Greer’s office said failure to prevent such imports is “unreasonable and burdens or restricts U.S. commerce.”
Trump’s tariffs are paid by U.S. importers who usually try to pass along those higher costs to customers.
The administration, mindful that Americans are growing increasingly unsettled by high prices with midterm elections just for months away, said that it would limit the impact by exempting from the latest proposed tariffs a long list of products, including aircraft parts, food products (from coffee to beef) and rare earth minerals crucial in the production of smartphones and cars.
The new tariffs would not take effect immediately. They are subject to public comment and review. Public hearings on the proposed duties are due to begin on July 7.
