Trump Administration Floats Tariffs on 60 Trading Partners, Citing 'Forced Labor' to Rebuild Tariff Wall After Supreme Court Loss

A New Legal Coat for the Same Tariffs

Late on Tuesday, June 2, 2026, the office of U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer announced proposed tariffs on 60 trading partners, alleging that each had “failed to impose and effectively enforce” rules against imports made with forced labor. Most countries on the list would face a 12.5% additional duty; others would face 10%. The list reads like a global trade map: the European Union, China, Japan, South Korea, the United Kingdom, Canada, Brazil, India, Vietnam, Indonesia, Mexico.

The legal vehicle is Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, which authorizes the president to take action against foreign practices deemed “unfair.” The political vehicle is the Supreme Court’s decision earlier this year striking down Trump’s previous tariff regime — which had been built on a sweeping invocation of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act — as unconstitutional. The forced-labor framing is the administration’s attempt to rebuild that wall on a different statutory foundation.

The Forced Labor Pretext

Forced labor in global supply chains is a real and well-documented problem, from Uyghur detention camps in Xinjiang to cobalt mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The United States has actual tools to address it: the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, Customs and Border Protection withhold-release orders, and targeted sanctions on specific producers. Those tools require evidence and target specific goods.

Section 301 tariffs of 12.5% applied uniformly to the European Union, the United Kingdom, Japan, and Canada are not that. They are a flat tax on imports from countries with some of the most robust labor enforcement regimes in the world, dressed in human rights language. The implication that Berlin, Tokyo, Ottawa, and London are all comparably failing to address forced labor is not a serious enforcement theory. It is a tariff rationale chosen because the previous rationale collapsed in court.

What the Pattern Shows

This is the second time in 18 months Trump has tried to impose sweeping tariffs on most of the United States’ trading partners, and the second time he has used emergency or trade-law authorities to bypass Congress, which holds the actual constitutional power over tariffs. When IEEPA was struck down, the administration did not return to Congress for tariff legislation. It pivoted to a new statute, slapped a new label on the same goal, and dared the courts to litigate it all over again.

The economic effect is the same regardless of label. Importers pay the tariffs; American consumers and businesses absorb the cost. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney told reporters the proposal was “not a surprise,” which is the new normal of U.S. trade relations under Trump: allies treating the destruction of the open trading system as a baseline expectation, not a crisis. The EU and UK now share a “failed to enforce forced labor laws” designation with China.

A Comment Period Designed to Be Ignored

USTR said it will accept public comments through July 6 and hold a public hearing on July 7. That timeline is administrative theater. The administration has already announced what it wants; the comment process exists to satisfy procedural requirements before the tariffs take effect. Industry groups, foreign governments, and labor organizations will file objections that will be acknowledged and rejected. The tariffs, in some form, will go into effect.

What is on the table is not really a forced labor policy. It is the restoration of Trump’s preferred state of trade affairs — one in which the president personally controls global tariff rates, businesses negotiate exemptions with the White House, and foreign governments come to Washington to plead their case. The forced labor framing is the legal fig leaf. The goal is the same one the Supreme Court rejected: a tariff system run by presidential decree.