Donald Trump has threatened tariffs of between 10% and 12.5% on 60 trading partners including the UK, the EU and Australia over alleged forced labour failures, in the latest attempt to revive his signature trade policy.
The EU immediately hit back, saying it expected the US to respect the tariff deal it entered into last July and arguing that stealth tariffs breached the spirit of that agreement.
The proposed levies on partners accused of allowing imports of goods produced by workers under coercion come after the US supreme court ruled in February that the president’s “liberation day” tariffs were illegal.
Trump responded by imposing 10% across-the-board tariffs, but last month the US trade court found those were also unlawful, although they remain in place during the appeal process.
The latest proposal for tariffs on the grounds of forced labour, which would affect major partners including Canada, Japan, Norway, Taiwan and China, would enable Trump to skirt those previous court-imposed limits on his protectionist agenda. They come as the US threatens to impose fresh levies of 25% on Brazil.
The US trade representative, Jamieson Greer, said: “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. We will no longer tolerate this disparity.”
The threat of fresh tariff disruption will unsettle trading partners, including Keir Starmer, who have fought hard to build trust with Trumpand to contain the cost of trading with his unpredictable administration.
Experts had predicted that Trump, who has been obsessed with tariffs as a tool of national economic security for decades, would try to find a way around the supreme court ruling in February.
At the time he threatened to use tariffs in a “much more powerful and obnoxious way” with at least six other legal routes to punish those countries he judged perilous to the US economy.
The latest tariffs are a result of investigations into the labour laws of 60 trading partners using section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974.
According to a 98-page report on that investigation, “only Canada, Ecuador, the European Union, Indonesia, Mexico, and Pakistan have not failed to impose a forced labor import prohibition”.
However, the White House judged Canada to be failing to enforce its laws, while in the EU the across-the-board ban on imports of goods using forced labour does not come into force until December 2027, meaning both trading partners could face tariffs.
The report said the EU, Canada, Mexico, Taiwan and the UK would face 10% tariffs, while 12.5% levies would be imposed on China, Japan, India, South Korea, Brazil and Switzerland.
The new tariffs would not take effect immediately and are subject to public comment and review.
The European Commission said the EU “fully shares” US concerns about forced labour but “considers tariffs imposed on these grounds to be unjustified”.
It said it remained committed to the deal entered into last July agreeing 15% tariffs on most goods, adding that it expected the US “to fully respect the terms” of that agreement.
The UK government said it had already tackled the issue of forced labour through legislation, including the Modern Slavery Act.
“We continue to engage regularly with the US administration as part of our negotiations, and have made clear the actions we’re taking,” a spokesperson said.
“The preferential access that UK businesses benefit from under our existing agreement remains in place and there is no change to the UK’s tariff rate.”