A 10–12.5% tariff on imports from 60 countries and the EU, including a 10% rate for the UK, took effect on 24 July under a statute with no legislated end — succeeding an emergency levy that expired, by law, the same day.
The rate on offer — a tariff of roughly 10% — is not new. What changed on 24 July is the law behind it. The Supreme Court struck down the President's global "reciprocal" tariffs on 20 February 2026, ruling that the emergency-powers statute used to impose them, IEEPA, did not authorise them.3 The White House immediately invoked a different, narrower power — Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 — to impose a flat 10% global tariff, but Section 122 caps any such surcharge at 150 days.2 That clock ran out at 00:01 ET on 24 July, the same moment the new Section 301 forced-labor tariffs took effect — and Section 301 carries no statutory sunset at all.1
USTR investigated all 60 economies for the same thing: whether each imposes and effectively enforces a ban on importing goods made with forced labor.1 Seventeen — including Canada, Mexico, India and the UK — pay the lower 10% rate, because they already ban such imports, have committed to under a trade agreement, or partly do so.1 Five more — the EU, Japan, South Korea, Switzerland and Taiwan — get a different formula, calculated net of what they already pay, rather than stacked on top.1 The remaining 38, including China, Vietnam, Thailand and Brazil, pay a flat 12.5%, added on top of whatever duty already applied.1
Whether Section 301 survives a legal challenge is untested. A separate case already narrowly enjoined the Section 122 stopgap for three named importer plaintiffs in May, on the grounds the President exceeded that statute's authority6 — and legal researchers have flagged that Section 301, designed for bilateral or sector-specific disputes, sits awkwardly with a simultaneous 60-economy action, which could expose it to similar "arbitrary and capricious" review under the Administrative Procedure Act.3 The 431-page Federal Register notice also carries two annexes of product-by-product exemptions that this piece has not itemised at the tariff-line level1, and the consumer-cost modelling below was run three days before the tariff took effect, against the proposed rather than the final rate structure.4
USTR frames this strictly as a labor-rights action; critics read the rate structure as the old tariff regime rebuilt on sturdier legal ground. Both readings are argued in good faith by people with direct knowledge of the record.
USTR says the finding followed 60 formal investigations, two rounds of public hearings and more than 2,100 public comments, and that the US has enforced its own forced-labor import ban for nearly a century while asking trading partners to do the same.1 A senior administration official told reporters several economies had already tightened enforcement to qualify for the lower rate during the process — India's rate fell from a proposed 12.5% to 10%, the official said.7
New Zealand's prime minister called the rate imposed on his country "extremely disappointing" and said the investigation "did not provide meaningful evidence" on forced labor; Australia's trade minister called his country's tariff "completely unjustified."5 Trade-law analysts note the 60-country list and 10–12.5% range closely track the tariff wall the Supreme Court invalidated in February, and argue Section 301 — written for bilateral or sector-specific disputes — was not designed as a substitute for a global tariff policy.8
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