President Donald Trump’s administration has imposed double-digit tariffs on goods from more than 60 trading partners, citing a failure to enforce forced-labor import bans. The Friday levies arrived just as temporary worldwide trade duties expired, immediately drawing a federal lawsuit that argues the labor justification is a legal workaround for invalidated emergency trade powers.
Section 301 Levies Target 60 Trading Partners as Temporary Duties Expire
The Trump administration’s newest trade measures took effect, imposing tariffs ranging from 10% to 12.5% on imports from more than 60 trading economies. According to Apnews, the affected countries account for 99% of U.S. imports. The administration defended the timing and breadth of the tariffs by stating it consulted with all 60 economies under investigation, held two rounds of public hearings, received more than 2,100 public comments, and engaged with trading partners regarding their efforts to combat forced labor.
The fresh duties arrived precisely as temporary 10% worldwide tariffs expired. Those temporary measures had served as a stopgap after the Supreme Court struck down the administration’s earlier global tariffs in February. Trade experts and critics immediately pointed out the sequence, arguing that the forced-labor rationale serves primarily as a vehicle to replace the lapsed duties without approaching Capitol Hill.
The 301s allow a permanent tariff without going to Congress to settle the dispute,
said Barry Appleton, a law professor and co-director of New York Law School’s Center for International Law, as noted by Mymotherlode. That’s what all of this is about. The president doesn’t want to knock on the front door of Congress, so he’s trying every side door and every unlatched window to get in.
Liberty Justice Center Files Lawsuit in the U.S. Court of International Trade
The legal battle over the new trade restrictions materialized hours after the duties took effect. The Liberty Justice Center, a libertarian nonprofit that successfully challenged the administration’s previous use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, filed a fresh lawsuit in the U.S. Court of International Trade on behalf of two small businesses.
The complaint asserts that the administration is leveraging Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 as a pretext to revive the exact global tariff architecture that the high court dismantled. The lawsuit states that the statute is not a freestanding authorization to tax substantially all imports from substantially all trading partners at rates selected to replicate the invalidated IEEPA tariff regime rather than to eliminate identified foreign practices.
Legal scholars echoed skepticism regarding the durability of the administration’s approach.
International Pushback and Industry Carve-Outs Emerge
Trading partners subjected to the new tariffs pushed back swiftly against Washington’s assertions.
Expander Strategies and Pending Investigations
Even as the Section 301 tariffs take hold, the administration continues to lay groundwork through alternative legal authorities.
Simultaneously, the administration signaled intentions to open a new Section 301 investigation targeting the European Union over regulatory fines imposed on major U.S. technology companies. Whether these statutory pathways can withstand judicial scrutiny in the Court of International Trade remains the central, unresolved question for the administration’s broader trade agenda.
