Washington:
US President Donald Trump has imposed new double-digit tariffs on at least 60 of America’s trading partners, including India, China, and the United Kingdom, claiming that they have inadequately enforced bans on goods produced by forced labour. The United States will impose taxes ranging from 10 per cent to 12.5 per cent on imports from these nations, which critics say are part of the president’s broader campaign to reduce Americans’ reliance on imports.
The announcement, which was anticipated, came just as the clock runs out on Friday on stopgap levies he imposed after a defeat at the Supreme Court. The White House, in its order, said that countries –such as China, the United Kingdom, and Japan– that do not have any law barring the import of goods produced with forced labour rather than buying products made by higher-paid American workers, will face tariffs of 12.5 per cent.
Nations that enforced such laws — including India, Sri Lanka, and the European Union — will be hit with 10 per cent levies if they fail to enforce them.
Some US imports, like products governed by the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement and oil and gas, have been exempted from the new levies.
The Timing
The Trump administration’s latest tariffs blitz takes effect at 12:01 am on Friday, the same moment as the temporary 10 per cent import tax he enforced earlier expires. That measure was introduced after a February Supreme Court judgement that invalidated Trump’s so-called “Liberation Day” tariffs introduced in April 2025.
Team Trump claimed that the latest action stemmed from President Donald Trump’s long-standing opposition to involuntary labour.
“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,” US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said.
“Today’s action will begin to correct what is both a human rights abuse and a distortive trade practice to improve the welfare of workers everywhere,” he added.
Tariffs on India
After the latest measure, the total tariff imposed on India will remain at 10 per cent. Imports from India to the United States had been subject to a standard 10 per cent global surcharge imposed by the Trump administration after the Supreme Court’s February hearing, but it expires today.
Earlier, Trump had threatened to implement an extra 12.5 per cent penalty tariff on India over forced-labour enforcement concerns. But in the latest statement, the White House said that following the publication of the Notice of Determinations, certain economies like Cambodia, Guatemala, Honduras, India, Sri Lanka, and Trinidad and Tobago have imposed forced labour import prohibitions or undertaken commitments regarding forced labour import prohibitions in an Agreement on Reciprocal Trade (Jordan).
“As a result of these actions, the Trade Representative has advised me that the goods of these economies should be tariffed at the 10 per cent rate to further encourage these economies to effectively enforce such prohibitions, and, in the case of Jordan, to enact and effectively enforce its commitments regarding forced labour import prohibitions,” it said.
More Tariffs Coming
According to a report by the Washington Post, the Trump administration, within weeks, is expected to introduce another set of tariffs that will apply to goods from countries that subsidise excess manufacturing capacity, resulting in a flood of low-cost products on global markets that US companies can’t match.
The flurry of activity comes as President Trump appears eager to pull every measure he can identify to rebuild the tariff wall the Supreme Court broke in February, using laws considered less vulnerable to legal challenge than the rushed approach he employed last year.
