President Trump has proposed tariffs of at least 10 percent on 60 American trading partners, his most aggressive effort yet to enact new import duties after the Supreme Court struck down the administration’s sweeping tariffs.
Jamieson Greer, the U.S. trade representative, said on Tuesday night that investigations found that the 59 countries, along with the 27-nation European Union, had failed to enact or effectively enforce laws prohibiting imports made with forced labor.
The administration, invoking a legal provision known as Section 301, proposed a 12.5 percent duty on imports from countries including China, Brazil, South Korea, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Goods from the European Union, Canada and Mexico would face 10 percent import taxes.
Mr. Trump has signaled he intends to use Section 301 to rebuild his tariff agenda after the Supreme Court ruled that he exceeded his authority by using the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEEPA, to impose duties without congressional approval.
After the court struck down those tariffs, Mr. Trump sought to revive them partially with a global 10 percent duty under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974, a never-before-used provision. A trade court ruled in May that the move violated the law. The tariffs were initially scheduled to expire at the end of July.
Mr. Greer’s office has also opened an investigation into what the Trump administration has described as “excess manufacturing capacity” among 16 of America’s largest trading partners.
“Following the Supreme Court overturning the IEEPA tariffs, a legal basis was needed to rebuild Trump’s tariff wall, and this was a convenient way to do so,” said Steve Okun, chief executive of APAC Advisors, a geopolitical consulting firm.
Mr. Okun added: “Tariffs are here to stay under the Trump administration.”
Mr. Greer’s office is scheduled to hold hearings on July 7 about the proposed tariffs, which would take effect sometime after that.
“The failure of our most important trading partners to address the importation of goods made with forced labor is unacceptable,” Mr. Greer said in a statement. “This creates a dynamic where American workers are forced to compete globally on an unlevel playing field.”
Some products would be exempt from the tariffs, including beef, bananas, coffee, steel and a slate of critical minerals.
The move is likely to anger some of the United States’ closest trading partners, whose relations with Washington have been whipsawed by contentious negotiations and the Supreme Court’s ruling in February.
In the days after Mr. Trump’s meeting with Xi Jinping, China’s top leader, in Beijing last month, the Chinese government sought to draw a line under trade tensions, saying both sides had agreed not to raise tariffs further and warning that it could retaliate if Washington did so again.
Mao Ning, a spokeswoman for the Chinese foreign ministry, told reporters on Wednesday that it opposed unilateral tariff measures in all forms. “Tariff wars and trade wars are not in the interests of any party,” she said.
Olof Gill, a spokesman for the European Commission, said the European Union is “fully committed” to eliminating goods made with forced labor from global supply chains and had already entered a joint agreement with the United States to work together to protect labor rights.
Augustine Lo, a trade attorney at Dorsey & Whitney, a law firm, noted that the proposed duties “closely track the trade deals that the Trump administration made with certain countries before the court invalidated the IEEPA tariffs.”
In a 98-page report released with the proposal, Mr. Greer’s office detailed what it described as the failures of the countries to adequately address goods produced with forced labor.
The report highlighted the prevalence of forced labor involving Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities in the production of cotton and polysilicon in China’s western Xinjiang region. Researchers have cited evidence of forced labor, mass detentions and the incarceration of Muslim ethnic groups, including Uyghurs, in re-education camps there.
The Chinese government denied the presence of any forced labor in its supply chains. Ms. Mao said there was “no such thing as forced labor in China,” and that Beijing opposed “using this as pretext for political manipulation.”
Trump administration officials justified the proposed 10 percent tariff on the European Union by arguing that the bloc’s recently adopted regulation banning imports made with forced labor will not take effect until the end of 2027.
“Because the European Union cannot enforce its measure until that date, it follows that it cannot do so ‘effectively’ until then,” the report said.
Some justifications are likely to even further frustrate trade allies. The report pointed to a surge in Brazilian beef exports to China. Brazil, a major supplier of beef to China, deepened its trade ties with Beijing after American beef became a casualty of Mr. Trump’s trade war.
The report suggested that China’s willingness to buy Brazilian beef, likely produced with forced labor had “distorted competition” by creating a cost advantage.
“Although other factors, such as the size of the U.S. beef herd, may have also influenced competition between beef from the United States and Brazil,” it said. “Nevertheless with a forced labor import prohibition, the United States would likely have experienced greater sales, revenues, and exports of beef to China, all else equal.”
Alexandra Stevenson and Berry Wang contributed reporting from Hong Kong and Jeanna Smialek from Brussels.
