U.S. trading partners from Canberra to Brasília have pushed back against the forced-labor rationale underpinning President Donald Trump’s sweeping new global tariffs.
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative acted under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, imposing tariffs on 60 economies for what Washington called a failure to ban goods made with forced labor.
The duties are set at 10% for partners that have adopted or committed to import prohibitions, and 12.5% for those that have not, covering 99.4% of American imports.
The measure replaces a temporary 10% global tariff imposed under Section 122 of the trade act, which expires July 24, after the Supreme Court ruled Trump’s emergency-powers tariffs unlawful in February.
The forced-labor probes give the administration a more durable legal foundation for a baseline tariff that courts had previously challenged and struck down.
Australian Trade Minister Don Farrell said in a statement, “These tariffs are unjustified, inconsistent with our free trade agreement, and should be removed,” adding that Australia’s anti-forced-labor measures are “among the strongest in the world.”
Brazil’s government called the tariffs “arbitrary” and “unjustified,” with President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva saying he remained open to negotiations but would seek other markets if Brazil could not sell into the U.S.
Brazil now faces a stacked tariff burden, with the new duty combining with a separate 25% Section 301 tariff imposed on Brazilian goods this month, rebuilding a 37.5% barrier close to the 50% rate struck down last year.
Chile’s government said the measure was inconsistent with its labor standards and the technical, political, and legal evidence it submitted, noting the U.S. resolution does not even allege Chile exports goods made with forced labor.
Canada, placed in the lower 10% tier with an exemption for USMCA-compliant goods, struck the mildest tone among affected nations, with Minister for Canada-U.S. Trade Dominic LeBlanc saying Ottawa would “continue engaging constructively” in the coming weeks.
New Zealand’s foreign ministry said its trade minister made clear Wellington disagrees with the investigation’s findings and will continue registering that position directly with the U.S. government.
Existing exemptions covering roughly 30% of New Zealand’s U.S.-bound exports, including beef and kiwifruit, remain unchanged under the new tariff structure.
Despite the widespread criticism, no major trading partner has announced concrete countermeasures in direct response to the forced-labor tariffs.
The Peterson Institute for International Economics wrote that the investigation is “not a labor-standards exercise but a mechanism for exporting America’s import ban on Chinese goods, as well as an attempt to recreate the tariff regime struck down by the Supreme Court.”
Analysts broadly agree the forced-labor framing is less about reforming global labor standards than about pressuring other countries to align with Washington’s trade posture toward China.
