Trump Slaps New Tariffs on 60 Countries Right as Old Ones Expire

The Trump administration announced Thursday it will impose tariffs of 10% to 12.5% on imports from 60 countries — accounting for roughly 99% of U.S. imports — citing inadequate enforcement of bans on goods made with forced labor. The new duties are being levied under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, following a formal investigation into trading partners’ failure to “impose and effectively enforce” forced-labor prohibitions [1, 2]. The tariffs take effect at 12:01 a.m. Friday, timed to backfill the temporary 10% worldwide tariffs that are set to expire the same moment [3].

Countries facing the new 10% baseline levy include Argentina, Bangladesh, Britain, Cambodia, Canada, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, India, Indonesia, Jordan, Malaysia, Mexico, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Trinidad and Tobago, while the European Union, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and Switzerland face rates up to 12.5% [2, 4].

Why It Sucks:

American Importers and Retailers

• The tariff wall never actually comes down. Businesses that adjusted supply chains expecting the temporary global tariffs to lapse Friday now face a new, near-identical duty structure covering virtually every trading partner, with no reprieve on costs passed to consumers [3, 4].
• Legal justification looks like a pretext. Using a forced-labor enforcement rationale to reimpose blanket tariffs on 60 countries — rather than targeting specific bad actors — reads to trade lawyers as a workaround for tariff authority that was set to expire [1, 3].
• Compliance costs fall on firms that did nothing wrong. A British or Canadian importer with clean labor practices still eats the same 10% duty as a country credibly linked to forced-labor supply chains, because the tariff is applied at the country level [2].

Trump Administration and Trade Hawks

• Finally a stick with real leverage. Tying tariffs to forced-labor enforcement gives Washington a lasting legal hook — grounded in trade law rather than an expiring emergency authority — to keep pressure on countries that tolerate exploitative labor practices in their export industries [1, 2].
• Closing a loophole trading partners exploited for years. Backers argue that many of the 60 countries have simply not enforced their own forced-labor bans, letting cheap, exploitative production undercut goods made under fair labor standards [2].
• Replacing an expiring tariff keeps the pressure campaign alive. With the temporary global tariffs lapsing, this move ensures the administration doesn’t lose its trade leverage just as new negotiations with major partners are underway [3, 4].

Workers in Affected Exporting Countries

• Entire economies penalized, not specific factories. Blanket, country-wide tariffs hit garment and manufacturing workers in places like Bangladesh, Cambodia and Sri Lanka whose jobs depend on U.S.-bound exports, regardless of whether their specific employer engages in forced labor [2, 4].
• Allies get lumped in with worse offenders. Treating Canada, Britain, Japan and South Korea the same as countries with documented forced-labor supply chain concerns undercuts the credibility of the stated rationale and strains relationships with close trading partners [2, 4].
• Higher tariffs raise the cost of legitimate reform. Governments genuinely trying to strengthen labor enforcement get hit with the same duty as those that aren’t, removing the incentive structure that would otherwise reward improvement [1].

Sources & Citations:

[1] Forbes: Trump Reimposing Tariffs On 60 Countries, Citing Forced Labor
[2] The Hill: Trump administration announces new tariffs on 60 countries over forced labor
[3] Washington Times: Trump slaps new tariffs on 60 trading partners, backfilling blanket tariffs Congress let expire
[4] NPR: Trump to impose double-digit tariffs on dozens of countries