U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer is imposing tariffs on 60 economies that refuse to ban and enforce prohibitions on goods made with forced labor, acting at President Trump’s direction under Section 301 of the Trade Act.
The move follows months of investigations that included two rounds of public hearings, more than 2,100 comments, and talks with trading partners. Greer said decades of polite pressure have failed to clean forced labor out of global supply chains. The United States has banned such imports for nearly a century and enforces it; it’s time everyone else does the same.
On March 12, USTR launched the probes. By June 2 it formally determined the countries’ failure to act is unreasonable and burdens U.S. commerce. After more public input and hearings in July, Greer set the final rates:
- 10 percent for economies that already ban forced-labor goods, have committed to do so under a Reciprocal Trade Agreement, or have partial bans in place (Argentina, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Canada, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, India, Indonesia, Jordan, Malaysia, Mexico, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Trinidad and Tobago, and the United Kingdom).
- 10 or 12.5 percent (net of MFN rates) on certain products from the European Union, Taiwan, Japan, Korea, and Switzerland.
- 12.5 percent for all remaining investigated economies.
Some products get exemptions—raw materials critical to domestic supply, goods that could trigger broader economic disruption, items not available in sufficient quantity or at reasonable price from other sources, and certain goods from countries showing progress on forced-labor rules.
The action treats forced labor as both a human-rights abuse and a trade distortion that undercuts American workers.
