Washington Turns Forced Labor into a New Tariff Lever

Washington – 28 July 2026: The United States has once again placed its trade policy on a broad international front. Since Friday, additional tariffs of 10 or 12.5 percent have applied to imports from 60 economies, including the European Union and China. The measure replaces an expiring, temporary blanket tariff of 10 percent. The Office of the United States Trade Representative, USTR, justifies the move by saying that the affected partners do not do enough to prevent imports of goods made with forced labor or do not effectively enforce existing bans. According to the US government, the 60 partners account for 99 percent of US imports.

The political ambition is considerable. Forced labor is a real and global human rights problem: the International Labour Organization put the number of people affected in 2021 at 27.6 million. Washington is now using the issue as the basis for proceedings under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, an instrument targeting trade practices that, in the American view, burden its own trade. The regulation also provides for exemptions. Raw materials or intermediate goods may be exempted if otherwise shortages in the United States or economy-wide disruptions are likely. Goods that cannot be procured in the United States in sufficient quantities or at reasonable prices also fall into this category.

The selection of recipients shows that the issue is about more than enforcing minimum social standards. For certain products from the EU, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Taiwan, Malaysia, Indonesia, Jordan, Guatemala, El Salvador, Ecuador, Cambodia, Bangladesh and Argentina, the USTR cites the possibility of exemptions. The European Commission therefore reacted notably cautiously, saying that the outcome was within the scope of the tariff commitments in the joint EU-US statement from the previous year. Beijing, meanwhile, described the new duties as protectionism and called for their withdrawal. Chinese goods are subject to the higher rate of 12.5 percent.

Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said on Monday that the new round was unlikely to have economy-wide effects because its rates were similar to the previous global levies and covered only a smaller group of countries. At the same time, he announced further investigations into overcapacity in 16 major partner economies, including China, Vietnam, Mexico and the EU. This means the forced labor regulation is not a closed matter. It combines human rights conditionality with a permanently expanded toolkit of American industrial and trade policy.