Donald Trump has slapped tariffs ranging from 10% to 12.5% on more than 80 countries, citing their failure to enforce bans on goods made with forced labour. The move drew immediate pushback from trading partners who see the rationale as a thin cover for what they view as protectionist overreach.
The tariffs replace a blanket 10% duty Trump imposed in February, which the US Supreme Court largely struck down as illegal. The new levies hit the UK, Mexico, Canada, Australia, India, China, and the 27-member European Union, deployed under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974.
Kaja Kallas, the EU's foreign policy chief, dismissed the forced labour argument outright. "You can't say that for the European Union," she said on the sidelines of an Asian meeting in Manila. "If you compare our labour laws to the ones of the United States, I mean, we have paid vacations, we have very good labour conditions for our employees, so it's not really grounded."
Kallas noted the EU had honoured commitments under a 2025 transatlantic trade agreement and viewed the tariffs as a betrayal. "We had a deal with America and we have kept to that deal, that side of the deal," she said. "That's why this is a negative surprise that this agreement is not kept."
New Zealand's Prime Minister Christopher Luxon called the tariffs "extremely disappointing" and said Washington had not provided "meaningful evidence to support claims in relation to forced labour." Australia and Brazil each rejected the tariffs as unjustified and vowed to seek their removal. Norway's foreign minister pointed out the country already had "clear rules that are intended to prevent trade in goods produced using forced labour."
US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer defended the action, saying the US had policed forced labour imports for nearly a century and that trading partners needed to catch up. Yet critics view the forced labour justification as a legal dodge.
Richard Neal, the top Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee, said the rationale was "too convenient to be taken seriously." He warned that forced labour is a real problem in supply chains that deserves genuine enforcement, not to become "cheapened into a pretext for a tariff policy built on dubious legal theories and personal grievances."
According to former US trade official Ryan Majerus, the Trump administration has been searching for tariff mechanisms that could withstand court challenges. The forced labour justification followed a months-long investigation and is considered more resistant to legal attack than the February duties.
Countries that have already implemented or committed to forced labour import bans, including Canada, the EU, India, and the UK, face the lower 10% rate. China, Japan, South Korea, and dozens of others drew the higher 12.5% tariff. Japan's chief government spokesperson Minoru Kiharam said his country's trade was "conducted in accordance with international rules" and expressed regret over the new US measures.
The timing underscores the mounting trade friction. In Ontario, a planned joint US-Canada ceremony to open a new bridge over the Detroit River was scrapped after Canada rejected the event following Trump's announcement of a 50% tariff on Canadian goods. Government officials called Friday's measure "not unexpected."
The tariff campaign is far from over. Washington is separately investigating 16 economies for alleged excess industrial capacity, a move experts warn will likely spark additional duties in coming weeks.
Author James Rodriguez: "The forced labour angle looks like legal window dressing for what allies recognize as raw protectionism, and it won't survive the scrutiny once these disputes hit the courts again."
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