On Thursday, U.S. President Donald Trump moved forward with new permanent double-digit tariffs on goods from 60 major U.S. trading partners, just hours after temporary stopgap levies—imposed following a Supreme Court defeat earlier this year—officially expired. The new measures set tariffs ranging from 10% to 12.5% on covered imports, covering 99% of all goods entering the United States. The Trump administration justified the new taxes by alleging that these trading partners have failed to adequately enforce bans on imports produced through forced labor, with 10% duties on exports from Trinidad and Tobago remaining unchanged from the earlier temporary regime.
Speaking on behalf of the administration, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer framed the move as a long-overdue push for global policy alignment, noting, “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.”
The new tariffs replace the temporary 10% global levies that were set in place after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Trump’s earlier, broader tariff regime in February. That original 2024 action invoked the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), under which Trump imposed double-digit tariffs on nearly all global imports, framing the country’s decades-long trade deficit as a national emergency. The Supreme Court ruled that IEEPA did not grant the president authority to implement tariffs under that framework, forcing the administration to issue refunds to importers that had paid the disputed duties.
Following that ruling, Trump implemented temporary 10% tariffs under Section 122 of the 1974 Trade Act, a provision that limits temporary trade measures to a 150-day window. That window closed at the end of yesterday, prompting the transition to the new permanent structure under Section 301 of the same 1974 Trade Act. This statute grants the president authority to impose import taxes and other trade sanctions against nations found to engage in “unjustifiable,” “unreasonable,” or “discriminatory” trade practices. Trump previously relied on Section 301 to implement large-scale tariffs on Chinese goods during his first term, measures that ultimately survived legal challenges in federal courts.
Key sectors are exempt from the new round of tariffs, including domestic oil and gas production and fertilizer imports. Goods that qualify for duty-free treatment under the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA)—the revised North American trade pact negotiated by Trump during his first term—are also spared from the new duties.
The Trump administration has signaled that additional Section 301 tariffs may be on the horizon: the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative has already launched an investigation into whether 16 major trading partners, which account for 70% of total U.S. imports, have engaged in overproduction that suppresses global prices and puts U.S. manufacturers at a competitive disadvantage. That probe is still ongoing, with no final timeline for completion announced.
Trump has long positioned steep tariffs as a core policy tool to revive American manufacturing, and last year formally overturned decades of bipartisan U.S. policy that prioritized lower trade barriers and increasingly liberalized global trade. However, the new tariffs drew immediate pushback from congressional critics, who argue the forced labor justification is a thin pretext for a broader protectionist agenda.
“Today’s forced labour justification is too convenient to be taken seriously,” said U.S. Representative Richard Neal of Massachusetts, the ranking Democratic member of the House Ways and Means Committee. “Forced labour is a real and pervasive problem in our supply chains and demands serious enforcement. It should never be cheapened into a pretext for a tariff policy built on dubious legal theories and personal grievances.”