---
title: "Trump sets 10% to 12.5% tariffs on 60 countries, citing forced labor"
description: "As a temporary 10 percent tariff expires Friday, the administration announced new duties of 10 to 12.5 percent on imports from about 60 countries, covering 99 percent of what the U.S. buys abroad. They take effect in 30 days, use a forced-labor rationale under a 1974 trade law, and exempt oil, gas, fertilizer and USMCA-qualifying goods."
category: "Business"
category_url: https://herald.la/category/business
author: "Desmond Clarke"
published: 2026-07-23T22:44:00.000Z
updated: 2026-07-23T22:44:00.000Z
canonical: https://herald.la/article/trump-sets-10-to-12-5-tariffs-on-60-countries-citing-forced-labor
tags: ["tariffs", "trade", "trump", "economy", "imports"]
---
# Trump sets 10% to 12.5% tariffs on 60 countries, citing forced labor

As a temporary 10 percent tariff expires Friday, the administration announced new duties of 10 to 12.5 percent on imports from about 60 countries, covering 99 percent of what the U.S. buys abroad. They take effect in 30 days, use a forced-labor rationale under a 1974 trade law, and exempt oil, gas, fertilizer and USMCA-qualifying goods.

The Trump administration is replacing an expiring temporary tariff with a broader, permanent-looking one, [ABC7 reports](https://abc7.com/story/trump-imposes-double-digit-tariffs-dozens-countries-10-levies-are-set-expire-friday/19564732/): new duties of 10 to 12.5 percent on imports from roughly 60 countries, timed to a Friday deadline.

## What is changing

A temporary 10 percent tariff, imposed under Section 122 of trade law, expires at 12:01 a.m. Friday. In its place, the administration announced new tariffs of 10 to 12.5 percent covering about 60 countries, which together account for 99 percent of U.S. imports. The new duties take effect in 30 days.

The legal footing is different this time, and the difference matters. These tariffs rely on Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, which allows duties on countries whose trade practices the U.S. deems "unjustifiable," "unreasonable" or "discriminatory." That is a deliberately more durable basis than the administration's earlier approach: the Supreme Court struck down Trump's original tariffs in February, ruling that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act did not authorize them. Building the new round on Section 301 is an attempt to avoid the same fate.

## The stated reason

The rationale the administration is offering is forced labor. U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer framed the tariffs as enforcement: "The United States has had a forced labor import ban for nearly a century. It's well past time for our trading partners to do the same." By that logic, the tariff rate becomes a lever, countries that tighten forced-labor enforcement can lower their exposure. India, for one, saw its rate cut from a proposed 12.5 percent to 10 percent after doing so.

Whether forced-labor enforcement is the principal aim or a legal vehicle for a broader tariff agenda is a fair question, and one worth holding open rather than answering. The pattern, an expiring tariff replaced by a wider one on firmer legal ground, is consistent with an administration determined to keep tariffs in place through whatever authority survives court review.

## What is exempt, and why it matters here

Not everything is covered. Oil, gas, fertilizer, and goods that qualify for duty-free treatment under the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement are exempt. Those carve-outs blunt some of the most politically sensitive price effects, energy and food inputs, at a moment when oil is already spiking on the Iran war.

For Los Angeles, a city whose economy runs on the ports and the goods that flow through them, a tariff touching 99 percent of imports is not an abstraction. It raises the landed cost of a vast range of products and, eventually, some consumer prices, even as the exemptions protect fuel and fertilizer. A separate Section 301 investigation into 16 countries, about 70 percent of U.S. imports, over overproduction is still ongoing, which means this is very likely not the last word. The Herald will report the effects as the 30-day clock runs and the duties take hold.

## Sources

- [Trump imposes double-digit tariffs on dozens of countries as his 10% levies are set to expire Friday](https://abc7.com/story/trump-imposes-double-digit-tariffs-dozens-countries-10-levies-are-set-expire-friday/19564732/)