US says the affected countries either have not banned imports made with forced labour, or have not properly enforced such bans
Published Fri, Jul 24, 2026 · 12:05 PM
THE Trump administration has hit on a new way to impose tariffs on 60 nations that supply almost all US imports – accuse them of failing to enforce bans on foreign goods made with forced labour.
If approved, the levies will create a new trade barrier that may be less vulnerable to legal challenges than Trump’s “reciprocal” tariffs that were unveiled in April 2025 and struck down by the Supreme Court in February.
The US government said the affected countries either have not banned imports made with forced labour, or have not properly enforced such bans. Its argument is not about human rights: Nations which fail to block imports made with forced labour are deemed to enjoy an unfair competitive advantage.
Why is the US prioritising forced labour in its trade agenda?
The US has prohibited the import of goods made with forced labour since 1930. It has also targeted goods from specific places. A 2021 law bans all imports from the Xinjiang region of China on the presumption that they are made with forced labour.
Trump’s team has returned to the issue of forced labour as a way to reimpose comprehensive import tariffs following the Supreme Court’s February ruling that his “Liberation Day” duties unveiled on Apr 2, 2025, were unconstitutional. The government has been told to repay those levies, which were based on the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act. That process is still under way.
A few weeks after the ruling, the US Office of the Trade Representative (USTR) announced two investigations under Section 301 of the 1974 Trade Act, looking at forced labour and excess capacity in manufacturing. The Act allows the government to impose punitive measures, including tariffs. The USTR has now released its report on the labour investigation. The overcapacity report is still to come.
What is forced labour?
The International Labor Organization defines it as all work or service which is exacted from any person under the threat of a penalty and for which the person has not offered himself or herself voluntarily.
What is the Trump administration’s justification for the new tariffs?
Unlike the 2021 law, which is based on an assessment of labour conditions in one country, the new report does not attempt to say whether specific nations are actually importing goods made with forced labour, nor does it look at whether products are being made in those countries using forced labour.
USTR assessed whether a country has a formal ban in place on goods imported using forced labour and if it is enforcing a ban or otherwise attempting to block such imports.
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USTR is arguing that a nation failing to enforce a ban on forced labour “burdens or restricts US commerce by subjecting US producers to unfair competition from forced labour goods in both export markets and the US market, and by displacing foreign goods produced without forced labour or forced labour inputs from their domestic market to the United States and other markets.”
On Canada, for example, it argues that although the country prohibited imports made with forced labour almost six years ago, the fact that it does not appear to have published any official statistics or information on enforcing that means that there is a “low level of enforcement.”
The report also argues that a loss of US market share in exports such as tobacco, rice, beef, or cotton to nations where there are concerns or evidence of forced labour suggests “that US exports have possibly been adversely impacted by competition from forced labor goods” or that forced labour goods have possibly entered the US and undermined US businesses.
How would forced labour-related tariffs work?
The USTR is proposing to impose either a 10 per cent or a 12.5 per cent tariff on imports from the 60 nations – depending on various criteria including whether they already struck a trade deal with the Trump administration.
There is also a special mechanism to “allow for a certain volume of apparel and textile imports from certain economies to enter the United States” at a reduced rate. The levies would be applied at the border in the same way as other tariffs, with the rates decided by the USTR after hearings and public comments.
What would be the impact of the new tariffs?
The 60 nations investigated cover 99.4 per cent of all US imports. The most affected are likely to be Mexico, Canada and China – the top three sources of US imports in 2025, according to the International Monetary Fund.
The levies that the new tariffs are meant to replace were different for each nation, so the impact is likely to vary country by country.
According to a Bloomberg analysis of the statement, the tariff on Canada and Mexico would be 10 per cent, while on China it would be 12.5 per cent. There are also significant carve-outs for electronic goods.
Maeva Cousin of Bloomberg Economics said the new levies would raise the effective US tariff rate by about 0.5 percentage point from its current 10.7 per cent, assuming they are implemented after the temporary Section 122 tariffs imposed following the Supreme Court ruling expire.
While China’s government criticised Washington’s latest tariff move, it has previously signalled it would accept some increase in tariffs as long as the total rate did not exceed what was agreed upon in talks in October 2025. BLOOMBERG
