The Trump administration has unveiled a sweeping new proposal to impose additional tariffs of 10 percent or higher on imports from dozens of the United States’ major trading partners, stemming from a high-stakes probe into foreign nations’ failure to block goods produced with forced labor from entering global supply chains. In a report released publicly early Wednesday, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) laid out a two-tiered tariff structure: a 10 percent additional levy will apply to imports from Canada, Mexico, Taiwan, the United Kingdom, and a handful of other jurisdictions deemed to have fallen short of enforcing their own forced labor import bans. A steeper 12.5 percent additional tariff is proposed for a larger group of economies including China, Japan, India, South Korea, Brazil, and Switzerland, among dozens of other nations.
USTR Ambassador Jamieson Greer defended the proposed measures in an official statement, arguing that the persistent failure of key U.S. trading partners to crack down on forced labor-produced goods creates an unfair competitive landscape that disadvantages American workers. “This creates a dynamic where American workers are forced to compete globally on an unlevel playing field,” Greer said, adding that every trading partner has a responsibility to strengthen enforcement to prevent trade from enabling and entrenching exploitative forced labor practices across the world.
Notably, the proposed tariffs will not go into effect immediately. The plan will first undergo a formal period of public comment and regulatory review, giving stakeholders and affected nations time to weigh in before any final action is taken.
The entire probe that led to this proposal was conducted under Section 301 of the 1974 U.S. Trade Act, a legal framework that analysts say would allow the Trump administration to bypass the restrictions the U.S. Supreme Court placed on the president’s tariff authority earlier this year. In a February ruling, the high court found that Trump had exceeded his constitutional and statutory power when he used the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to impose broad, sweeping tariffs on U.S. trading partners.
The USTR’s report formalizes a clear definition of forced labor consistent with international standards, describing it as “work or service exacted from a person under the menace of any penalty for its nonperformance and for which the worker does not offer himself voluntarily.” The proposal marks a major shift in the administration’s trade policy strategy, coming in direct response to the Supreme Court’s limits on emergency tariff authority, while framing the new measures around a globally shared goal of combating labor exploitation.