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The United States will levy fresh tariffs on imports from 60 trading partners starting Friday as a temporary global duty hits its expiration date.
Goods from China, the European Union and Mexico will be among those affected by the Section 301 tariff, with certain countries’ exports to the U.S. facing a 10% rate and others being hit with a 12.5% charge, per a Federal Register filing. Goods that are loaded on a vessel before Friday and entered for consumption before July 28 will not be affected by the levies.
For imports from countries with Most-Favored Nation rates, such as the European Union, Japan and South Korea, the tariff charged will be net of the MFN duty, per the filing. More simply, the combination of the Section 301 tariff and MFN rate will not exceed either 10% or 12.5%, depending on the country, unless the MFN duty already surpasses that percentage.
“Those three words—“net of MFN”—may end up being the biggest story in the entire announcement,” Pete Mento, director of global trade advisory services at Baker Tilly, said in a LinkedIn post. “If it works the way it appears, this isn’t simply another tariff stacked on top of existing duties. It could fundamentally change how the Section 301 duty is calculated for those products.”
The U.S. will exempt a range of products from the new tariffs, including numerous agricultural goods as well as goods already subject to Section 232 levies, such as steel and aluminum. Country-specific exemptions are also listed in the filing, such as certain textiles from Malaysia and whiskey from the United Kingdom.
Section 301 forced labor tariff rates by country
The tariff rates the U.S. will charge for imports from each trading partner included within the Trump administration’s levies tied to forced labor.
The tariffs are the result of a Section 232 investigation launched in March into the forced labor regulations of key U.S. trading partners. U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer first proposed the levies last month after finding the 60 countries had failed “to impose and effectively enforce” goods made with forced labor from entering the U.S. The Trump administration doubled down on the rationale Thursday.
“Despite longstanding international consensus that this practice must be eliminated, the prevalence of forced labor persists worldwide and has even escalated in recent years,” a USTR fact sheet released alongside the Federal Register filing says. The fact sheet said the tariffs would cover 99.4% of U.S. imports.
By announcing these new levies, the Trump administration is preparing for the expiration of a global 10% tariff installed earlier this year in the wake of a Supreme Court ruling that undid previous duties imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. The temporary Section 122 tariff is set to expire Friday.
The Trump administration has also imposed new levies on goods from Canada and Brazil in the last week. Both countries are also included within the list subject to the forced labor tariffs. Thursday’s filing did not indicate how the forced-labor tariffs would interact with the new levies on imports from Canada and Brazil.
Even more duties could be in store in short order, with the U.S. still conducting a Section 301 probe into global manufacturing capacity. Findings from the investigation have yet to be revealed, but it was launched the same week as the forced labor probe.
