US Targets 60 Countries With Tariffs Over Forced-labour Goods

WASHINGTON, July 24 (Bernama-Anadolu) -- The United States (US) announced on Thursday that it will impose additional tariffs of 10 per cent or 12.5 per cent on 60 trade partners over their “failure to impose and effectively enforce a prohibition on the importation of goods produced with forced labour”, Anadolu Ajansi (AA) reported.

The action was taken under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 following investigations into the acts, policies and practices of various economies related to forced labour imports, the Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR) said in a statement.

The tariffs, which cover 99.4 per cent of US imports from the investigated economies, will be set at either 10 per cent or 12.5 per cent, subject to certain product exemptions.

“President (Donald) Trump recognises that decades of moral suasion have not eradicated forced labour from global supply chains,” US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said in a statement.

“The United States has had a forced labour import ban for nearly a century and rigorously enforces it. It’s well past time for our trading partners to do the same,” Greer added.

The US administration launched the Section 301 investigations into 60 trading partners in March, citing their failure to ban and effectively enforce prohibitions on imports of goods produced with forced labour.

The USTR said at the time that the investigations covered 60 trading partners, including China, the European Union, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, India, Japan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Switzerland, Norway, Taiwan, the UK and Türkiye.

On June 2, the USTR determined that the practices of the investigated economies were “unreasonable” and burdened or restricted US commerce, making them actionable under Section 301.

-- BERNAMA-ANADOLU