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European countries have emerged as relative winners of Donald Trump’s latest move to rebuild his tariff wall after it was struck down by the US Supreme Court earlier this year.
The US on Thursday hit 60 trading partners with rates ranging from 10 to 12.5 per cent, just as previous global levies of 10 per cent expired.
Several European countries are better off under the new tariff regime, according to an analysis by the independent trade monitoring body Global Trade Alert, with rates for France, the UK, Germany and Spain all falling.
By contrast, many Asian and Latin American countries are worse off. Rates for China, Vietnam and Indonesia have all increased by between 0.5 and 1 percentage point, as have rates for Chile and Colombia.
By far the biggest loser is Brazil, which the US president hit with separate tariffs earlier this month. Its effective tariff rate jumps from 11 to 17.7 per cent, according to the analysis.
The new duties were imposed using Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, which analysts said was designed to put Trump’s tariff wall on a more secure legal footing, with 60 separate directives aimed at each individual trade partner.
They show how Washington is finding new ways to maintain Trump’s flagship trade policy even after the Supreme Court ruled in February that the levies imposed after his “liberation day” event in April 2025 were illegal.
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George Riddell, managing director of the Goyder trade consultancy, said the move would protect the administration against the risk of another blanket collapse of the tariff regime.
“The practical effect [of the new tariffs] is to force litigation to be economy-specific. A successful challenge to the action against one economy would, on the face of the notice, be unlikely to unwind the other fifty-nine,” he wrote in a note to clients.
The new regime, targeted at countries the administration claims are failing to “impose and effectively enforce” a ban on imports made using forced labour, replaces 10 per cent global tariffs introduced as a stopgap immediately after the top court’s decision in February.
The overall effective tariff rate holds steady at 10.8 per cent — approximately the same rate as before — but significantly below the 15.8 per cent rate at the time of the Supreme Court ruling.
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Johannes Fritz, Global Trade Alert’s chief executive, said some European countries had emerged as relative winners due to the mix of their exports to the US and whether they took advantage of the many exemptions for products such as diamonds, cork and pig iron.
Under the new rules, the 10 per cent tariff rate for the EU also would not be “stacked” on top of other levies, unlike in the stopgap regime, handing the 27-member bloc a relative advantage.
“Rates rise, particularly for Brazil, but also for China. In general, they fall for the Europeans, even if only slightly,” said Fritz.
Belgium, Spain and Italy stand to gain the most, with their effective rates dropping by between 1 and 1.5 percentage points, the Global Trade Alert analysis shows.
“Italy and Spain benefited from a drop in tariff rates on footwear and woven garments as well as knitted apparel, as well as handbags,” Fritz added.
The EU struck a conciliatory tone on Thursday, welcoming the fact that the new rates did not exceed the 15 per cent ceiling agreed when the US and EU struck a deal at Trump’s Turnberry golf resort in Scotland last summer.
However, the reprieve may only be temporary. The EU is braced for a separate investigation into “structural excess capacity and production in manufacturing sectors”, which is expected to lead to more duties.
Taken together, these could result in an overall higher rate than the 15 per cent ceiling.
If that happens, the European Commission has told EU ambassadors that a retaliatory package remains ready to be deployed on €93bn of US exports, including cars, bourbon and soyabeans.
