Trump Administration Proposes New Tariffs on Dozens of Countries Over Forced Labor Concerns

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration has proposed imposing additional tariffs of 10% or more on products from dozens of major trading partners, following an investigation into imports allegedly made with forced labor. The report, released early Wednesday by the U.S.

Trade Representative (USTR), states that Canada, Mexico, Taiwan, the United Kingdom, and several other countries and territories would face a 10% additional tariff for allegedly failing to enforce a ban on forced labor imports. A 5% additional tariff would be applied to China, Japan, India, South Korea, Brazil, Switzerland, and dozens of other nations.

“The failure of our most important trading partners to address the importation of goods made with forced labor is unacceptable. This creates a dynamic where American workers are forced to compete globally on an unlevel playing field,” USTR Ambassador Jamieson Greer said in a statement.

He added that “each of our trading partners must do more to ensure that trade does not perversely encourage and entrench forced labor globally.” The USTR said the failure to prevent such imports is “unreasonable and burdens or restricts U.S. commerce.”

This latest round of tariffs is likely to unsettle key trading partners already hit by waves of tariffs since President Donald Trump returned to office early last year. Just two weeks ago, the European Union approved a tariff deal with the United States to cap tariffs on most EU exports at 15%, following intense debates among the EU’s 27 nations and threats by European lawmakers to block the agreement.

Trump recently returned from a visit to China, where he and Chinese President Xi Jinping discussed expanding market access for American businesses in China and increasing Chinese investment into U.S. industries.

The two leaders agreed to set up separate boards of trade and investment, though few details were provided.

A Chinese government spokesperson denied the forced labor allegations and called for resolving economic issues through dialogue, stating that a trade war does not serve anyone’s interests. “There is no such thing as forced labor in China, and we oppose using it as an excuse to engage in political manipulation,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said in Beijing.

The new tariffs would not take effect immediately. They are subject to public comment and review, with public hearings on the proposed duties scheduled to begin on July 7.

The investigation was conducted under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, a strategy that enables Trump to skirt limits on his tariffs imposed by the Supreme Court. The investigation found that 60 countries had failed to enforce a prohibition on the importation of goods produced with forced labor.

The report defined forced labor 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.” It cited an estimate by the UN’s International Labor Organization that as of 2021, 27.6 million people were engaged in forced labor.

Products cited as prone to involving forced labor include rice from Myanmar, tobacco from Malawi, beef from Brazil, and cotton and polysilicon from China. The U.S.

has long said imports of goods that include material from China’s far-western Xinjiang region are at risk of using forced labor. Beijing denies allegations of forced labor in the Muslim-majority region.

The Supreme Court ruled in February that Trump had overstepped his authority by using a different law—the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) of 1977—to impose sweeping tariffs on U.S. trading partners.

The Trump administration has said it would appeal a federal judge’s order making all companies that paid duties on those earlier tariffs eligible for refunds.

Earlier this week, the administration separately proposed 25% tariffs on imports from Brazil, charging that the world’s 10th-biggest economy engages in trade practices that are “unreasonable” and that “burden or restrict U.S. commerce.” The USTR said its investigation showed Brazil had lax anti-corruption enforcement and unfair tariffs of its own, among other things.

In its nearly 100-page report on forced labor, the USTR said that even if a country enforces a ban on forced labor domestically, importing goods made with forced labor violates the rules of fair trade. AP Business Writer Elaine Kurtenbach contributed to this report.