Trump Tries Again To Impose Sweeping Global Tariffs

(Ludovic MARIN / AFP via Getty Images)

U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer (right) addresses journalists next to U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent following a new round of trade discussions with Chinese officials at the OECD headquarters in Paris on March 16, 2026.

The sweeping nature of the Trump administration's proposed Section 301 tariffs on 60 U.S. trading partners will likely face additional court challenges, but this will not deter the White House from continuing its broader push to more sustainably implement its global tariff regime. On June 2, U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) Jamieson Greer proposed imposing a 10% or 12.5% tariff on 60 economies after concluding an investigation into their trade practices under Section 301 of the 1974 Trade Act. The investigation determined that these countries failed to impose and/or effectively enforce measures prohibiting the import of goods made with forced labor, which was deemed "unreasonable" and restrictive to U.S. commerce per Section 301. Greer's announcement initiated a public comment and review process, with written comments due by July 6 and a public hearing scheduled for July 7. This means the tariffs could be implemented by mid-Q3 2026. In March, the USTR also initiated a Section 301 investigation into alleged manufacturing overcapacity in 16 economies, with findings that could be published in the coming days or weeks.

Under Greer's proposal, the lower 10% tariff rate would apply to economies that have a reciprocal trade agreement with the Trump administration and have taken steps to address forced labor, or those identified as having a partial regime to restrict forced labor imports. This group includes Argentina, Bangladesh, Canada, the European Union, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mexico and the United Kingdom. All other countries on the list would face a higher 12.5% tariff rate, including Australia, China, Brazil, Japan, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey and Vietnam. For Brazil, it appears these tariffs would be additional to a 25% U.S. tariff proposed on June 1 stemming from a distinct, Brazil-specific Section 301 investigation. The Trump administration can increase these Section 301 tariffs in the future if it wants to, but doing so would require another public comment process.
The USTR published a list of hundreds of goods that would be exempted from the tariffs, including many fruits, specialty fuels and aircraft parts. Goods covered by Section 232 investigations, such as steel and automobiles, would also be exempt, as would goods imported from Mexico and Canada that meet the rules of origin requirements under the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA). Additionally, the USTR proposed a mechanism that would allow for some textiles to be imported at a lower rate.

The Trump administration is seeking to replace expiring Section 122 tariffs with new, more permanent Section 301 tariffs, as it tries to partially rebuild its reciprocal trade regime following recent court challenges. The proposed Section 301 levies represent the most significant effort by the Trump administration yet to rebuild its tariff regime after the U.S. Supreme Court in February struck down the sweeping levies imposed in 2025 under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). Immediately following that ruling, the White House implemented a 10% global tariff under Section 122 of the 1974 Trade Act, citing the need to address the United States' "serious and large" balance-of-payments problem. However, those levies are set to expire on July 24, as Section 122 tariffs can only remain in effect for 150 days unless Congress approves an extension. In March, the USTR then launched Section 301 investigations into 60 economies. Since then, U.S. officials have repeatedly signaled that the Section 301 probe would yield new tariffs to replace the Section 122 tariffs as they expire. The USTR's June 2 announcement confirms this strategy, as the timelines for the comment and review periods roughly align with the July 24 expiration, and the proposed tariff rates are nearly identical to the Section 122 rates.

On May 7, the U.S. Court of International Trade ruled that the Trump administration's 10% Section 122 tariffs imposed on most imports were unlawful. But instead of issuing a universal injunction striking down the tariffs, the court only blocked the administration from enforcing them against two companies that sued and the state of Washington.

The proposed tariffs' scope and the rapid investigations underpinning them will likely result in greater legal challenges compared with previous Section 301 cases, even though they are on firmer legal footing than the IEEPA or Section 122 tariffs; but if the new levies are successfully implemented, they will be politically harder to remove by a future administration. Section 301 tariffs are generally more legally sound than those enacted via Section 122 or the IEEPA. However, the expedited nature of the investigations and the sweeping breadth of the targeted economies suggest that these Section 301 levies will face greater legal challenges than would typically be expected, even though some, if not all, of the tariffs will likely survive. Further indicating this is the brevity of the investigative findings: the write-ups for some countries in the June 2 report totaled fewer than 110 words, and many used identical wording, with only the country names changed. These factors may trigger challenges under the major questions doctrine, as a court is more likely to rule that Congress handed over narrow authority to the president to use Section 301 for tariffs on individual countries than it is to rule that Congress granted the president sweeping authority to fundamentally rewrite the U.S. tariff schedule through broad use of Section 301. Even so, historical precedent suggests these tariffs could remain active for years during litigation. For instance, although the Court of International Trade initially invalidated the Section 122 and IEEPA tariffs, they remained in effect throughout the appeals process. In the IEEPA case, nine months elapsed between the initial CIT ruling in May 2025 and the Supreme Court's final decision in February 2026, despite an expedited review. Ultimately, if Section 301 tariffs withstand legal scrutiny, they would be far stickier and more difficult to remove politically by a successor administration than the IEEPA tariffs because they are anchored in formal trade investigations.

The USTR's June 2 report covering the results of the Section 301 investigations for all 60 economies totaled less than 100 pages. This lack of depth is particularly striking when compared to the first Trump administration's Section 301 probe into China's intellectual property practices, which produced a detailed report exceeding 200 pages.
The sparse evidence on how specific countries' forced labor policies restricted U.S. commerce may also be subject to legal challenge, as Section 301 penalties are supposed to be commensurate with the actual burden on U.S. commerce. The report's brevity — combined with the fact that the USTR, which employs only around 250 people, conducted investigations into 60 economies within three months — also raises legal concerns about compliance with the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) standards. In a March 2025 memo, Secretary of State Marco Rubio determined that tariffs are related to foreign policy — a category typically exempt from the APA. However, courts have so far rejected this argument, meaning the proposed tariffs could be overturned on administrative grounds as well.
Additionally, the tariffs could be challenged on grounds related to the 2024 Supreme Court ruling that overturned the long-standing Chevron deference doctrine, which previously required courts to defer to an executive agency's interpretation of an ambiguous statute, and the comparable Maple Leaf standard used specifically in trade cases.

In the short term, the proposed tariffs largely represent a continuation of the status quo for most U.S. trading partners, but the looming manufacturing overcapacity investigations could enable the Trump administration to raise tariffs more steeply against certain countries. The 10% and 12.5% tariff levels are nearly identical to the expiring Section 122 tariffs, and are lower than the 15% to 20% rates previously imposed under IEEPA. Nevertheless, there remains significant uncertainty about future trade actions against the 16 economies that are also being investigated under the White House's concurrent Section 301 probe into manufacturing overcapacity, which include China, the European Union, Japan, Mexico, South Korea and Vietnam. Because these economies all have large trade surpluses with the United States, this probe is expected to result in higher tariffs than the forced labor inquiry. It is unclear when the overcapacity investigation will conclude, and whether the Trump administration will use its results to merely adjust tariff rates back toward the 15% IEEPA baseline, or to justify stacking much higher tariffs on top of the newly proposed forced labor levies. For Japan and South Korea, the probe can only result in an additional 2.5% tariff without breaching their existing trade agreements with the United States, which cap tariffs at 15%. Meanwhile, countries subject only to the forced labor investigation now have greater clarity about the tariff levels their economies will face. But this will likely prove temporary, as the Trump administration has repeatedly shown its willingness to threaten further tariff hikes even after deals are finalized or rates are established.

Most targeted countries will likely adopt a "wait-and-see" approach rather than immediately retaliate, as the tariffs generally represent a continuation of the status quo. A notable exception is Brazil, where new levies appear to be added to a previously announced 25% tariff. Furthermore, since the proposed tariffs on forced labor and overcapacity may not take effect for several months, retaliation from any country is unlikely until the final terms are officially announced or implemented.