WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump moved quickly when he returned to the White House, wanting to hit trading partners with tariffs right away rather than waiting for lengthy legal investigations. But that fast-moving approach ran into trouble when the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a key piece of his tariff strategy this year.
Now, Trump and his advisers are shifting gears, turning to more established and court-tested trade laws to construct a more lasting tariff framework — the very tools he had little interest in using 18 months ago.
The most recent move — imposing duties of 10% or 12.5% on 60 countries over what the administration calls inadequate enforcement of forced-labor bans — is just the first in a series of expected tariff actions. Additional measures in the pipeline include investigations into excess industrial capacity, alleged intellectual property violations by Vietnam, and national security protections for industries ranging from semiconductors to robotics and industrial machinery.
Dan Ujczo, associate general counsel at Canadian oil producer Cenovus Energy and a specialist in U.S.-Canada trade, described the moment as a turning point. “We’re at the end of the beginning of the Trump tariff agenda,” he said. “Within the next few weeks, and certainly by the end of the summer, we will see large parts of President Trump’s trade policy fully in effect.”
For American businesses, this shift could provide a clearer picture of what the long-term tariff landscape will look like. For foreign governments, it may mean facing pressure to offer additional concessions in order to maintain access to a U.S. import market valued at $3.4 trillion.
The new forced-labor tariffs are being imposed under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 — the same unfair trade practices law used against China during Trump’s first term. They effectively replace a temporary 10% global tariff that expired recently and now cover 99.4% of all U.S. imports, according to the U.S. Trade Representative’s office.
The move rebuilds a significant portion of Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs — which had ranged from 10% to 50% on nearly every country — before the Supreme Court ruled them illegal. Those original tariffs had been imposed under an untested national emergencies law.
A second Section 301 investigation, this one targeting excess industrial capacity among 16 major trading partners including China, the European Union, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, and Vietnam, is also underway and could further reconstruct parts of the earlier tariff structure.
Not everyone is alarmed by the latest round of duties. Mark Bissell, chief executive of Michigan-based vacuum manufacturer Bissell Inc., said the new tariffs were largely what his company had expected, and that it had not rushed to stockpile inventory from China or other countries ahead of the announcement. “We continued to run the business based on the belief that the tariffs would stay in the 10-15% range,” Bissell said in an email.
The administration’s earlier tariff push had a complicated legacy. While it added costs for retailers and import-dependent industries and triggered sharp retaliation from China — eventually leading to a fragile truce — it also brought dozens of countries to the negotiating table and generated significant revenue for the federal government.
The now-invalidated Liberation Day tariffs alone brought in $166 billion, providing a meaningful offset to the growing federal deficit. However, refunds owed to importers have since pushed those collections into negative territory. A separate set of 150-day temporary tariffs added $31 billion in assessed revenue through July 5, though that money could also be subject to refunds if a court ruling against them holds up.
Josh Lipsky, chair of international economics at the Atlantic Council, noted that with U.S. public debt nearing $40 trillion, future administrations may find it difficult to walk away from tariff revenue. “The tariff wall is being rebuilt strong brick by strong brick, and it’s very durable,” he said.
While the new Section 301 forced-labor tariffs have already drawn a legal challenge from small businesses, trade and legal experts say the statute has a strong track record in courts, and judges may be reluctant to block actions aimed at curbing forced labor and opening markets to U.S. goods.
U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer made clear this week that the administration plans to use every available legal tool to bring manufacturing back to the United States and reduce the trade deficit. “The specific authorities this administration is using have changed, but the trade strategy has not,” Greer told the U.S. Senate Finance Committee.
Greer has indicated that the layers of tariffs being rebuilt will not exceed caps established in ongoing trade negotiations — 15% for the EU, Japan, and South Korea, with higher rates for Southeast Asian nations. Administration officials also say China’s rates will not go above the roughly 20% cap agreed upon by Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping last November, which comes on top of the 25% tariffs already in place from Trump’s first term.
Some announced tariff rates may be higher than what is actually applied, a mechanism analysts believe is designed to keep trading partners in line with agreed deal terms.
Still, unpredictability remains a factor. Earlier this week, Trump announced 50% duties on Canadian beer, dairy, hockey sticks, and other goods after Ottawa refused to make trade concessions. He also threatened to cut off all trade with Spain over that country’s failure to meet NATO military spending targets.
Eswar Prasad, a trade professor at Cornell University and former head of the International Monetary Fund’s China department, warned that the tendency toward sudden tariff announcements remains a significant risk. “Trump’s eagerness to impose tariffs to address a whole range of grievances will not only continue disrupting the global trading system but will have significant adverse effects on American households and businesses,” he said.
