The Trump administration has proposed sweeping new tariffs of up to 12.5% on imports from 60 countries, accusing them of failing to crack down on goods produced with forced labor. But experts, trading partners, and human rights organizations say the measures are unlikely to address modern slavery — and could, in some cases, make conditions worse.
The proposal, issued late Tuesday by the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR), targets economies ranging from China and India to the European Union, Canada, and Australia. Under the plan, nations that have partial prohibitions on forced-labor imports face a 10% duty; all others face a 12.5% levy. The USTR will accept public comments through July 6, with a formal hearing scheduled for July 7.
The move is the administration’s most sweeping trade action since the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Trump’s emergency tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act in February. It marks the second use of Section 301 of the 1974 Trade Act in as many months, following a separate investigation into alleged excess industrial capacity across 16 major trading partners.
U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer framed the tariffs in stark moral terms. “The failure of our most important trading partners to address the importation of goods made with forced labor is unacceptable,” Greer said. “This creates a dynamic where American workers are forced to compete globally on an unlevel playing field. We will no longer tolerate this disparity.”
But trade experts were blunt in their assessment. Inu Manak of the Council on Foreign Relations described the USTR’s findings as an exercise in justifying broad-based tariffs rather than a targeted response to exploitation. “Why not just target tariffs on those specific products where forced labor is present?” Manak said. “It seems to be a solution in search of a problem.” He added that the process places unchecked power in USTR’s hands, making compliance standards “entirely subjective and arbitrary.”
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Human rights advocates echoed the skepticism. Hélène de Rengerve of Human Rights Watch noted that the most severe instances of state-sponsored forced labor — including in China’s Xinjiang region, Turkmenistan’s cotton sector, and North Korea — are not the primary focus of the new tariffs, which are instead calibrated to trade volumes and geopolitical considerations. “It is not clear how this will be an incentive to actually” address exploitation, she told Reuters.
The reach of the tariffs is staggering in scope. According to foreign policy analysts, the 60 targeted economies account for roughly 99% of all U.S. trade, effectively making the measure a near-universal import tax dressed in human rights language. The Global Slavery Index data adds a layer of irony: the United States itself ranks as the country most exposed to imports at risk of forced labor, with an estimated $197 billion in suspect goods entering annually — dwarfing the import exposure of every country the USTR has targeted.
Trading partners pushed back forcefully. China, facing the 12.5% levy, said it “opposed all forms of unilateral tariffs” and denied any forced labor exists within its borders, calling the investigations “extremely unilateral, arbitrary and discriminatory.” India said it was engaged with Washington on the proceedings but noted the proposed tariffs were not yet final. The European Commission called the move unjustified and reaffirmed its commitment to the existing transatlantic trade deal.
The International Chamber of Commerce warned of broader implications. “There will be deep concerns in the international business community that U.S. forced labor law could become a global template,” said Andrew Wilson, the organization’s deputy secretary general — a prospect that alarms exporters from export-dependent economies across Asia and Latin America.
For now, the proposal enters a comment-and-review period. Whether it survives legal challenge — or a second Supreme Court ruling — remains an open question. What is clear, analysts say, is that the tariffs are less a human rights instrument and more the latest chapter in an ongoing effort to rebuild the trade barriers that the courts have already dismantled once.
