WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump has once again erected a new layer of tariffs around the American economy, this time targeting imports from 60 U.S. trading partners with double-digit levies.
The new taxes, which took effect at 12:01 a.m. Friday, are officially justified by the administration’s claim that those countries have not done enough to stop goods made with forced labor from entering the market. However, the sweeping scope of the tariffs — covering 99% of all U.S. imports — has led critics to suggest a deeper motivation: filling the void left by broad global tariffs that the Supreme Court struck down in February.
The timing was not coincidental. The new forced-labor tariffs kicked in at the exact moment that a separate set of temporary global tariffs expired — tariffs Trump had put in place following the Supreme Court’s ruling.
The levies were not entirely unexpected. They closely mirror proposals put forward by U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer back in June. Even so, they triggered swift backlash from trading partners abroad and critics at home, who point out that tariffs are essentially taxes paid by American importers — companies that buy goods from foreign countries — and those costs are typically handed down to everyday shoppers through higher prices.
Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden, the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, was blunt in his assessment: “This is a blatant attempt to revive Trump’s illegal global tariffs under a different name. These latest tariffs will continue to keep inflation and prices high for Americans, and do nothing to help workers around the world.”
The Liberty Justice Center, a libertarian advocacy organization, wasted no time filing a lawsuit against the new tariffs in a specialized trade court.
Trump’s aggressive tariff approach — aimed at bringing manufacturing jobs back to the United States — carries political risk heading into the November 3 elections that will determine whether Republicans hold onto full control of Congress. Many Americans are already feeling the strain of elevated living costs.
The new tariffs range between 10% and 12.5% and apply to 60 economies, including major U.S. trading partners such as the European Union, India, Japan, Canada, and Mexico. Countries that have no laws banning forced-labor imports face the higher 12.5% rate, while those that have such laws but are not adequately enforcing them — in the Trump administration’s judgment — face the 10% rate.
Certain products are exempt from the new tariffs, including oil, fertilizers, goods that already receive favorable treatment under a North American trade agreement, and products like steel and aluminum that are already subject to tariffs imposed on national security grounds.
The legal authority behind Friday’s tariffs is Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, a more legally durable statute that allows the president to impose import taxes and other penalties on countries found to engage in unfair trade practices. Trump successfully used this same law to impose large tariffs on China during his first term, and those tariffs withstood legal challenges.
American businesses and consumers are still absorbing the costs of other tariffs already in place. During his second term, Trump has used a separate law — Section 232 of the 1962 Trade Expansion Act — to impose duties on imported vehicles, steel, aluminum, lumber, and even kitchen cabinets, all of which remain in effect.
For much of last year, Trump also imposed broad “reciprocal” tariffs on nearly every country in the world using the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act, known as IEEPA. The Supreme Court struck those down in February, forcing the government to issue large refunds. A separate 10% tariff imposed under yet another law — Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974, which limits tariffs to 150 days — expired Friday when the new levies took effect.
Many businesses had anticipated the change and moved to get ahead of it. Earlier this month, the National Retail Federation and Hackett Associates projected that import volume at major U.S. container ports would reach an all-time high in July, “driven by retailers stocking up ahead of expected tariff increases.”
Because Friday’s tariffs are close in size to the prior 10% levy, analysts at Oxford Economics note that the overall effective U.S. tariff rate won’t shift dramatically right away. But uncertainty remains high, as businesses watch for the possibility of additional Section 301 tariffs from the Trump administration in the months ahead.
The National Retail Federation reiterated Friday that higher tariffs mean “higher costs for business owners” and ultimately higher prices for consumers. “We encourage the administration to focus on trade agreements with our nation’s trading partners that truly open markets by lowering tariffs, not raising them,” the group said in a statement.
Matt Priest, president and CEO of the Footwear Distributors and Retailers Association, said shoe manufacturers have already been raising prices in anticipation of the new tariffs. While footwear brands were previously able to share higher costs with their overseas factories, consumers are now beginning to see those increases reflected in store prices. In June, overall shoe prices climbed 4.1% compared to the same month in 2025, while children’s shoe prices rose 4.7%. Priest expects prices to keep climbing as companies also absorb higher fuel costs tied to the Iran war.
“We don’t see anything in the market right now that’s pushing prices downward, and that’s a concern,” Priest said.
The administration has defended the new tariffs by pointing to the forced-labor issue. “The United States has had a forced labor import ban for nearly a century, and rigorously enforces it; it’s well past time for our trading partners to do the same,” Trade Representative Greer said.
That argument was quickly rejected by several major trading partners. Australian Trade Minister Don Farrell called the tariffs “completely unjustified,” while European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas questioned the administration’s position and pointed to the “very good” labor conditions across her continent.
Criticism also came from Capitol Hill, largely along party lines. Democratic Congresswoman Linda Sanchez wrote on social media platform X: “President Trump isn’t serious about combating forced labor. If he was serious, he would not be applying the same tariff rate to China, one of the worst forced labor abusers in the world, as he does to countries like Australia.” Both China and Australia face the 12.5% rate under the new tariffs.
Industry coalitions had previously argued that tariffs of this scale would accomplish little in the fight against forced labor globally. The Forced Labor Working Group — which includes the National Retail Federation, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and others — wrote in a July 6 letter to Greer that “forced labor is a complex, multifaceted issue, and the proposed tariffs will not remedy this global problem.” The group urged the administration to pursue “more impactful” alternatives instead.
From a budget standpoint, the shift away from IEEPA tariffs has created a significant revenue gap. When those tariffs were fully in place, U.S. tariff collections peaked at more than $31.4 billion in October. After the Supreme Court ruling, revenue dropped sharply — falling to $22 billion in both March and April. As refund payments went out faster than new tariff revenue came in, the government recorded a $42 million shortfall in May, followed by a $25.6 billion loss in June.
The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget calculates that the new forced-labor tariffs — combined with other levies Trump recently announced on Canada and Brazil — will recover less than 60% of the revenue lost when the Supreme Court invalidated the IEEPA tariffs.
