More Than 80 Countries Hit With New Tariffs Amid Pricing Worries

The White House imposed a new round of tariffs on more than 80 countries to replace expiring levies in the latest turn of President Donald Trump’s ongoing effort to reshape global trade.

The administration is using a 52-year-old law to impose the new tariffs ranging from 10% to 12.5%, alleging that the targeted countries are failing to pass or enforce laws meant to prevent forced labor. 

“The United States has had a forced labor import ban for nearly a century, and rigorously enforces it; it’s well past time for our trading partners to do the same,” U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said, according to Reuters.

The levies cover Canada, which already has a ban on importing goods made with forced labor, and the European Union, whose own ban is set to take effect next year, The New York Times reported. 

Many of the goods covered under the levies, including steel inputs, electrical equipment, manufactured components and certain building materials, flow directly into industrial, data center and infrastructure projects, where budgets are tightly linked to global pricing.

The commercial real estate industry and broader economy have grappled with the ebbs and flows of tariff policy for more than a year, attempting to adapt to higher prices and unpredictability.

Mexico is also included, but the tariffs don’t apply to any goods already covered under the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement — Trump’s replacement for the North American Free Trade Agreement — or other national security-related tariffs the administration has imposed on cars, steel and other goods. 

The tariffs are being enforced under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, which gives Trump the authority to impose tariffs on countries that use unreasonable or discriminatory trade practices. The administration has specifically cited the lack of laws or poor enforcement around forced labor as the reason for the levies, drawing criticism from several U.S. trade partners.

“These tariffs are unjustified, inconsistent with our free trade agreement, and should be removed,” Australian Trade Minister Don Farrell said in a statement, CNBC reported. “Australia’s measures to combat forced labor and modern slavery are among the strongest in the world, and we are recognized globally, including in the U.S., for our leadership.”

Australia faces a 12.5% levy along with Brazil, China, Singapore and South Korea. Malaysia, Taiwan, Indonesia and India face 10% tariffs, CNBC reported. Oil, gas, fertilizer and some other products are exempt.

Experts say the tariffs have more sticking power than some of the other justifications the White House has tried to claim in court, Reuters reported.

More countries are likely to be added to the list. The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative launched an ongoing probe into whether 16 countries that account for 70% of U.S. imports have overproduced goods and pushed down prices to put the U.S. at a disadvantage in global markets.

The latest tariffs come after the 150-day limit was reached on the last legal justification the administration was using to impose the taxes, Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974. The White House leveraged those levies after the Supreme Court struck down the authority Trump used on Liberation Day in April 2025 to impose sweeping tariffs on nearly every country on the planet. 

The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 against the administration’s interpretation of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 in February, pushing the administration to rely on Section 122.

Around 27.6 million people were working in forced labor around the world on any given day in 2021, according to the latest data available from the United Nations, Reuters reported.