After a defeat in the Supreme Court, the administration of Donald Trump announced the introduction of new tariffs ranging from 10% to 12.5% for 60 trade partners. Argentina received the lowest rate. According to administration representatives, the new tariffs are aimed at combating the import of goods produced using forced labor.
U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer made this statement a few hours before the expiration of temporary 10% tariffs introduced under Section 122 after a legally established 150-day limit. The new measures, which will take effect from the first minute of Friday local time, apply to 60 countries that, according to the U.S. Trade Representative’s Office (USTR), account for 99.4% of the United States’ foreign trade.
Exemptions and free trade agreements
For countries that have legislation against forced labor, a tariff of 10% has been set. Among them is Argentina, which last February signed a mutual agreement on trade and investment with the United States. It was this agreement that previously suffered due to the Supreme Court’s decision, which annulled most of the White House’s global tariffs.
Sources familiar with the negotiations between the administrations of Trump and Javier Milei, interviewed by LA NACION, reported that the Argentine government expected the official USTR announcement to gain more clarity on the scope of the new measures and the procedure for their application, as individual goods will be exempt from the new tariff. According to the publication’s interlocutors, Argentina received the lowest base rate of 10% and effectively retained the conditions established after the signing of the mutual trade and investment agreement, which was concluded in February by Greer and Foreign Minister Pablo Kirno.
According to one of the sources, “What is new is that additional exemptions are added to the general ones”, which already cover 60 economies and about 2,100 commodity items. For Argentina, these are 93 items, including oils, live animals, flowers, cork, and wood.
Meanwhile, 1,675 Argentine goods for which the U.S. canceled tariffs under the agreement signed in February will remain unchanged thanks to the mechanism introduced by USTR on Thursday. The mutual agreement also provides for a ban on the import of goods produced using forced labor. The new tariffs do not apply to meat: the quota for the export of 100,000 tons of Argentine beef to the U.S. remains. This year, 80,000 tons were added to the already existing 20,000 tons. “This is not affected and is not subject to the 10% tariff announced this Thursday”, the source noted.
According to the USTR statement released this Thursday, at the direction of Trump, exemptions are provided for raw materials that may be in short supply in the U.S. domestic market, products that could cause economic disruptions, as well as goods that cannot be produced or grown in sufficient quantities or at an acceptable price in the United States or obtained from alternative sources.
“Certain goods from Argentina, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Ecuador, El Salvador, the European Union, Guatemala, Indonesia, Jordan, Malaysia, Switzerland, Taiwan, and the United Kingdom, the exemption of which will encourage these economies to fulfill their obligations to ban the import of goods made using forced labor, will also be excluded from the tariffs”, the statement said.
For countries that do not have relevant legislation, the U.S. has set a tariff of 12.5%. These include, in particular, Brazil. For the EU, Taiwan, Japan, Korea, and Switzerland, the rates will range from 10% to 12.5%.
Justification and future strategy
Greer applied the provisions of Section 301 of the 1974 Trade Act, introducing tariffs on trade partners “due to the inability to adopt and effectively apply a ban on the import of goods produced using forced labor”.
“This measure is the result of a USTR investigation that included two rounds of public hearings, over 2,100 comments, and consultations with trade partners to address these long-standing issues”, the statement said.
“Trump recognizes that decades of moral persuasion have failed to eradicate forced labor from global supply chains. The United States has banned the import of goods made using forced labor for nearly a century and strictly enforces this rule. It is time for our trade partners to do the same”, said Greer. According to him, this step will help eliminate “human rights violations and trade practices that distort competition”.
The new tariffs are to replace the temporary global tariff of 10% introduced for 150 days, the term of which expires on Friday. After returning to the White House, Trump launched a large-scale trade campaign, but the Supreme Court canceled most of his global tariffs. Some goods that are already subject to special tariffs for national security reasons — steel, aluminum, cars, and parts — will not be subject to the new measures. Certain food and agricultural goods, fertilizers, and energy products are also exempt.
On June 2, Greer concluded that the practices of 60 economies under investigation, related to the lack of an effective ban on the import of goods produced using forced labor, were “unjustified” and created obstacles for U.S. trade. After this, USTR proposed appropriate tariffs at the direction of Trump. The agency received written comments and held public hearings from July 7 to 9.
The list of countries that received the base tariff of 10%, in addition to Argentina, includes Bangladesh, Cambodia, Canada, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, India, Indonesia, Jordan, Malaysia, Mexico, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Trinidad and Tobago, and the United Kingdom.
On February 20, the Supreme Court dealt Trump the biggest legal defeat since his return to the White House, canceling most of the large-scale global tariffs that the president had previously introduced. Trump called this decision “deeply disappointing” and promised to use other legal mechanisms. The new tariffs related to forced labor have become the largest step by the administration to revive tariff policy. At the same time, a high-ranking administration official in a comment to Bloomberg emphasized that these measures are not just a replacement for the previous ones, but reflect the president’s intention to use all available tools to implement his trade strategy.
Speaking on Wednesday before the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance, Greer stated that in the field of trade, there remains a “nation”.
