Trump Proposes Forced-Labor Tariffs on 60 Trading Partners After Court Losses

Today’s Focus

President Donald Trump on Tuesday threatened tariffs of between 10% and 12.5% on 60 trading partners, including the United Kingdom, the European Union, Canada, Japan, Norway, Taiwan, Australia and China, citing what his administration described as failures to block imports made with forced labor, according to The Guardian and BBC.

US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said the proposal targets countries that allow goods produced by coerced workers into global supply chains. Greer argued the practice forces US workers to compete on what he called an unlevel playing field.

The announcement follows two adverse court rulings. In February, the US Supreme Court found the administration’s “liberation day” tariffs unlawful, The Guardian reported. The administration then imposed 10% across-the-board duties, which the US Court of International Trade also struck down last month, although those tariffs remain in effect during appeal.

Framing the new levies around forced labor would allow the White House to invoke statutory authorities distinct from the emergency powers courts have rejected, according to BBC and Politico. The European Commission responded that it expects Washington to honor the tariff agreement reached last July and warned that stealth levies would breach the spirit of that deal, The Guardian reported.

The proposal arrives alongside a separate US threat of 25% tariffs on Brazil. UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer and other leaders who negotiated bilateral carve-outs with the administration now face renewed uncertainty, according to The Guardian. NBC News reported that the policy would also apply to Mexico, a partner under the existing USMCA trade pact.

Administration officials have not yet published a final list of covered goods or an effective date. A public comment period is expected before any duties take effect, according to Politico.

The Debate

Supporters argue

Greer framed the policy as a long-overdue enforcement of existing US law. “The failure of our most important trading partners to address the importation of goods made with forced labor is unacceptable,” he said in a statement reported by The Guardian, adding that the administration “will no longer tolerate this disparity.”

Supporters note that Section 307 of the Tariff Act of 1930 already bars goods made with forced labor and that successive administrations have under-enforced it, according to Politico’s reporting on the proposal. Backers in Congress argue tariffs give Washington leverage to push allies to police their own supply chains, particularly for cotton, polysilicon and electronics linked to Xinjiang.

Trade hawks see a legal advantage as well. Because forced-labor authority rests on a different statute than the emergency powers struck down in court, supporters contend the new approach can survive judicial review, BBC reported.

Labor-aligned voices have at times agreed that forced-labor imports depress US wages, and the AFL-CIO has lobbied for years for tougher Customs and Border Protection enforcement, according to prior congressional testimony cited by Politico.

Critics argue

The European Commission stated it expects the United States to respect the July tariff agreement and said unilateral new duties would breach its spirit, The Guardian reported. EU officials suggested retaliatory measures remain on the table.

Critics in Congress and among trade economists argue the forced-labor rationale is a pretext to evade two court rulings rejecting the administration’s earlier tariffs. “Stealth tariffs,” as European officials described them to The Guardian, would impose the same costs on US importers and consumers while reframing the legal basis.

Allied governments object to being lumped with China. Canadian and Australian officials have previously rejected the premise that their export controls fail to meet international forced-labor standards, BBC noted in earlier coverage.

Business groups warn of price increases. The US Chamber of Commerce has consistently opposed broad-based tariffs, arguing they function as taxes on American firms and households, according to Politico. Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee said the proposal would raise consumer prices without measurably reducing forced labor abroad.

What the experts say

Trade scholars say forced-labor enforcement is a legitimate policy tool but a poor fit for blanket tariffs. Chad Bown, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, has written that targeted import bans under Section 307, rather than across-the-board duties, are the standard mechanism and produce measurable supply-chain shifts.

The Congressional Research Service has documented that the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, enacted in 2021, already authorizes detention of suspect shipments and has resulted in billions of dollars of cargo holds since 2022. Researchers at the Peterson Institute and the Brookings Institution have estimated that prior rounds of Trump tariffs were passed through almost entirely to US importers and consumers, citing studies by economists Mary Amiti, Stephen Redding and David Weinstein published in the Journal of Economic Perspectives.

The International Labour Organization estimates roughly 28 million people worldwide are in forced labor, a figure cited by both supporters and critics of the tariff proposal. Legal scholars including Kathleen Claussen of Georgetown Law have noted that courts will scrutinize whether forced-labor findings are backed by country-specific evidence rather than blanket designations.

By the Numbers

60: number of trading partners covered by the proposed tariffs, according to The Guardian.
10% to 12.5%: range of proposed tariff rates, per The Guardian.
25%: separate tariff rate the US has threatened on Brazil, The Guardian reported.
February 2026: when the US Supreme Court ruled Trump’s “liberation day” tariffs unlawful, according to The Guardian.
28 million: estimated number of people in forced labor worldwide, per the International Labour Organization.
2021: year Congress passed the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, according to the Congressional Research Service.
July 2025: date of the US-EU tariff agreement the European Commission says Washington must honor, per The Guardian.