On July 24, 2026, the Trump administration put new tariffs (taxes on imported goods) on more than 80 countries, covering 99.4% of everything the United States imports. Countries that have passed laws banning goods made with forced labor pay a 10% tariff. Countries that have not pay 12.5%. The previous temporary 10% tariff on all imports expired the same day (The Hill).

Canada, the European Union (all 27 member countries), India, Mexico, and the United Kingdom all committed to banning forced-labor goods, so they face the lower 10% rate. Australia, Brazil, China, and Japan did not adopt such bans and face the higher 12.5% rate. The U.S. Trade Representative's office — the government agency that handles trade policy — investigated 60 economies to see whether each was effectively blocking goods made with forced labor from entering the U.S. market (The Guardian; USTR).

The investigation process began on March 11, 2026. The government published its proposed tariff plan on June 2, held a three-day public hearing July 7–9 in Washington, D.C., and published the final notice on July 23 (Federal Register; Federal Register; USTR).

The action was also posted on whitehouse.gov as a presidential memorandum titled "Actions by the United States in the Investigations under Section 301," tagged with the topic "Forced Labor." Reuters reported that the forced-labor duties were originally proposed on June 1, 2026 (Reuters; whitehouse.gov).

To understand why the government switched to this new legal approach, it helps to know what happened earlier in 2026. On February 20, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6–3 in a case called Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump that a 1977 law the president had been using to impose tariffs — the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEEPA — does not actually give the president that power. The court said that during peacetime, only Congress can authorize taxes (Supreme Court).

After that ruling, Trump used a different law — Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 — to impose a temporary 10% tariff on all imports. Think of it as a bridge: Section 122 lets the president impose tariffs of up to 15% for a maximum of 150 days, but it is not meant for long-term use. That temporary tariff was set to expire at 12:01 a.m. on July 24, 2026. The new tariffs were issued just before that deadline, keeping the tariff system running under a different legal authority (The Guardian).

The new tariffs use Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, a law that lets the USTR investigate and respond to unfair trade practices by other countries. Section 301 has been the main tool for U.S. trade enforcement for decades. The Section 301 tariffs Trump placed on China during his first term survived court challenges, and the administration is now using the same law at a much larger scale (NPR).

The economic impact could be significant. The New York Federal Reserve estimated that 90% of the cost of tariffs gets passed on to U.S. consumers and businesses. So a tariff covering 99.4% of imports works like a broad tax on almost everything Americans buy from abroad (The Guardian; The Hill).

The broader context here is an administration testing how far the president's tariff power can stretch across different laws. The first approach (IEEPA) was struck down by the Supreme Court in February. The second (Section 122) was a 150-day bridge. Section 301 is now the third legal framework used in about six months. Each switch came just as the previous law was about to run out or be challenged, and each brought the tariff system under a different set of rules and legal risks.

The key question is whether the legal precedent from the China case — which involved one country and specific trade violations — extends to tariffs on more than 80 countries at once, based on their labor-law enforcement, covering nearly all U.S. imports. Alan Wolff, a trade expert at the Peterson Institute for International Economics and former deputy director-general of the World Trade Organization, called the new tariffs "another case of presidential overreach" and predicted the Supreme Court would likely strike them down if challenged (The Guardian). An administration official pushed back, saying the approach "encourages stronger labor rights enforcement abroad" (New York Post).

The Section 301 process was more thorough than the earlier tariff approach it replaces. The government investigated 60 economies, published its findings, held three days of public hearings, and filed official notices at every step. Whether that careful process will be enough to protect the tariffs from a court challenge — like the one that took down the IEEPA tariffs — is the question that now hangs over the entire policy.