the Supreme Court<\/a>.<\/p>\nThe US will slap levies of 10 to 12.5 percent on imports from 60 countries accounting for 99 percent of US imports, charging that they have inadequately enforced bans on goods produced by forced labour.<\/p>\n
Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of list<\/p>\n
\u201cThe United States has had a forced labor import ban for nearly a century, and rigorously enforces it; it\u2019s well past time for our trading partners to do the same,\u201d US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said in a statement on Thursday.<\/p>\n
\u201cToday\u2019s action will begin to correct what is both a human rights abuse and distortive trade practice to improve the welfare of workers everywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n
The new tariffs will take effect just as the temporary 10 percent worldwide tariffs expire at 12:01am on Friday in Washington, DC (04:01 GMT). Trump had turned to the temporary levies after the Supreme Court struck down his biggest and boldest tariffs in February.<\/p>\n
Now he is tapping more durable tariffs under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, which permits the president to impose import taxes and other sanctions against countries found to engage in \u201cunjustifiable\u201d, \u201cunreasonable\u201d, or \u201cdiscriminatory\u201d trade practices.<\/p>\n
Trump used Section 301 to impose big tariffs on China in his first term, and they survived court challenges.<\/p>\n
More Section 301 tariffs are likely coming: Greer\u2019s office has launched a probe into whether 16 countries \u2014 accounting for 70 percent of US imports \u2014 have overproduced goods, pushing down prices and putting US companies at a disadvantage in global markets.<\/p>\n
The administration has yet to complete that investigation.<\/p>\n
Trump, who argues that high tariffs will revive US manufacturing, last year overturned decades of US policy that favoured lower tariffs and freer trade.<\/p>\n
Invoking the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), he imposed double-digit tariffs on imports from almost every country, saying that the US\u2019s longstanding trade deficit amounted to a national emergency.<\/p>\n
But the Supreme Court ruled that IEEPA did not authorise tariffs. The decision forced the Trump administration to pay refunds to importers that had paid the levies.<\/p>\n
In response, Trump announced 10 percent worldwide tariffs under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974. But he can only use Section 122 levies for 150 days, and the time runs out on Friday.<\/p>\n
John Diamond, director of the Center for Tax and Budget Policy at the Baker Institute, said the administration was looking for a new authority to replace the expiring tariffs and decided to use Section 301.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a little bit ridiculous to think that over 60 major trading partners, including countries in the EU, are really relying on that much forced labour. It\u2019s kind of hard to believe,\u201d Diamond told Al Jazeera. \u201cBut I don\u2019t think the courts will want to overrule these tariffs as they did the IEEPA tariffs.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With existing 10 percent levies set to expire, Trump issues new tariffs on 60 countries under forced labour…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":955364,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2],"tags":[69,79,51,50,52,8304,67,72],"class_list":["post-955363","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-donald-trump","tag-economy","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-stories","tag-trade-war","tag-united-states","tag-us-canada"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116972816362204737","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/955363","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=955363"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/955363\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/955364"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=955363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=955363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=955363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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