On July 24, 2026, a new set of tariffs on imports from 60 countries took effect at 12:01 a.m., replacing a temporary set of worldwide levies that expired the same day. The new tariffs, ranging from 10 to 12.5%, cover countries accounting for approximately 99% of all U.S. imports, including close allies such as Canada, Mexico, the United Kingdom, Japan, South Korea, and the member nations of the European Union. The legal justification is that each of the 60 countries has failed to adequately ban or enforce a ban on goods produced with forced labor. The tariffs were imposed under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, a law the administration chose specifically because it has survived court challenges before. The stopgap tariffs they replace were put in place after the Supreme Court struck down Trump’s original tariff regime in February 2026. The administration has already launched a separate investigation under the same law that could produce additional tariffs covering 70% of U.S. imports.
Why Today’s Tariffs Exist: The Supreme Court Struck Down the Original Ones
In February 2026, the Supreme Court struck down the sweeping tariffs Trump had imposed in 2025 under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, commonly known as IEEPA. Trump had invoked IEEPA to impose double-digit tariffs on imports from nearly every country on Earth, arguing that the United States’ longstanding trade deficit constituted a national emergency. The Supreme Court ruled that IEEPA does not authorize tariffs. The decision invalidated the administration’s broadest and most ambitious trade policy and required the federal government to pay refunds to importers who had already paid the IEEPA tariffs. In response, Trump turned to Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 to impose a temporary 10% worldwide tariff. Section 122 allows the president to impose import surcharges to address balance-of-payments deficits, but it limits those tariffs to 150 days. That 150-day window expired on July 24, 2026, requiring the administration to find a different legal authority or watch the tariff wall fall entirely.
What Section 301 Is and Why the Administration Is Using It
Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 gives the U.S. Trade Representative broad authority to investigate and respond to foreign trade practices that are unjustifiable, unreasonable, or discriminatory, and to impose tariffs or other sanctions as a remedy. Unlike IEEPA, which the Supreme Court ruled does not authorize tariffs, Section 301 has been used to impose tariffs before and survived legal challenges. Trump used Section 301 in his first term to impose large tariffs on China, and those tariffs were upheld in court. The administration is now using Section 301 as its primary vehicle for rebuilding the tariff regime the Supreme Court dismantled. The legal theory in the current action is that the 60 targeted countries have failed to adequately ban imports of goods produced with forced labor, as required by U.S. trade law, and that this failure constitutes an unjustifiable or unreasonable trade practice. Countries that made commitments to strengthen their forced labor enforcement received a 10% tariff; countries that made no such commitments received 12.5%.
What the Forced Labor Justification Means
The International Labor Organization, a United Nations agency focused on human and labor rights, defines forced labor as all work or service extracted from a person under threat of penalty and without that person’s voluntary consent. According to the ILO’s most recent statistics, approximately 27.6 million people were in forced labor worldwide on any given day in 2021. The United States has had its own ban on importing goods made with forced labor for nearly a century, and has enforced it more aggressively in recent years, particularly through the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act of 2021, which prohibits imports made in China’s Xinjiang region. Human trafficking and forced labor experts said the issue is real and that import bans can be an effective tool. Martina Vandenberg, founder and president of The Human Trafficking Legal Center, said her organization has advocated for import bans for years and that the tariff threat appears to have already prompted several countries to adopt or tighten forced labor import bans of their own. However, Vandenberg expressed concern that the bans would be, in her words, thin slips of paper with no enforcement, and called for a phased approach giving countries time to build meaningful enforcement mechanisms. Other experts noted a structural flaw in the tariff design: the tariffs are imposed based on goods a country imports, not goods it produces, which limits how directly the tariffs target forced labor in those countries’ own supply chains.
Who Is Skeptical of the Justification
Critics argued that the forced labor justification is a legal pretext for a tariff policy the administration was going to pursue anyway. Representative Richard Neal of Massachusetts, the top Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee, said in a statement that the forced labor framing was too convenient to be taken seriously and accused the administration of cheapening a real human rights problem into a pretext for a tariff policy built on dubious legal theories and personal grievances. Brazil, which faces a 12.5% tariff, called the action arbitrary and unjustified and said it plans to invoke its domestic reciprocity law, which could trigger retaliatory tariffs on the United States, and to file a complaint with the World Trade Organization. Brazil’s government said the United States chose to manipulate an issue of great importance to human rights in order to accuse 59 countries and the European Union of unfair practices. Chile, which also faces a 12.5% tariff, said through its Undersecretary for International Economic Relations that the action is inconsistent with Chile’s labor standards and with the technical, political, and legal background Chile presented throughout the investigation process. Canada, which is already subject to 50% tariffs under a separate Section 338 action signed on July 20, received additional tariffs under the new forced labor regime. Canada’s Trade Minister Dominic LeBlanc said the move was not unexpected and that Canada would continue engaging constructively with the United States.
What Is Exempted
The administration built several exemptions into the new tariffs. Oil, gas, and fertilizer imports are excluded. Goods that qualify for duty-free treatment under the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, the free trade deal Trump negotiated with Canada and Mexico in his first term, are also exempted from the forced labor tariffs. This means that some Canadian and Mexican goods that would otherwise face the 10% forced labor tariff can still enter the United States duty-free under USMCA, even as other Canadian goods face the separate 50% Section 338 tariffs signed on July 20. The interaction between the multiple overlapping tariff regimes, each imposed under a different legal authority, has made it significantly more complex for U.S. importers and trading partners to calculate the actual cost of bringing goods into the American market.
More Tariffs Are Coming
The Section 301 forced labor tariffs announced on July 23 are not the administration’s only active tariff investigation. The U.S. Trade Representative’s office has launched a separate Section 301 investigation into whether 16 countries have overproduced goods, driving down prices globally and putting American companies at a competitive disadvantage. That investigation covers countries accounting for approximately 70% of U.S. imports. The administration has not yet completed that investigation or announced what tariff rates it would seek. If finalized, those tariffs would represent a third distinct Section 301 action, layered on top of the forced labor tariffs and the separate Canada-specific Section 338 tariffs. The administration is also pursuing a July 4 deadline for a trade deal with the European Union. The overlapping structure of these actions, across multiple legal authorities, multiple justifications, and multiple timelines, means the full tariff picture for U.S. importers and consumers will continue to shift in the months ahead.