Overview
- The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative implemented 10% or 12.5% tariffs that took effect when the temporary 10% duty expired, covering about 99.4% of U.S. imports with a short transit grace period for goods already en route.
- The administration says the duties target countries it found did not sufficiently ban or enforce bans on goods made with forced labour and that Section 301 offers a firmer legal basis than the earlier emergency and temporary tariffs.
- The program uses a two‑tier rate that places countries that have or committed to forced‑labour import prohibitions in a lower 10% band and others in a 12.5% band, with carve-outs for oil, gas, fertilizer, certain foods, goods under other tariff regimes, and some trade‑agreement caps.
- Governments including China and several European and Pacific partners protested the action and two U.S. small businesses filed a court challenge arguing the USTR applied near‑uniform duties without country‑specific findings.
- The tariffs are the first layer of a larger trade campaign that USTR is pursuing through additional Section 301 probes into excess industrial capacity, intellectual property and national‑security vulnerabilities that could add further duties and heighten costs for exporters and consumers.