The Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) has proposed applying an additional tariff surcharge of 10% or 12.5% to 60 trading partners, including the European Union, the United Kingdom, and China, considering their actions insufficient to prevent the trade of products manufactured with forced labor.
"It is unacceptable that our most important trading partners are not addressing the import of goods made with forced labor. This creates a dynamic where American workers are forced to compete globally on unequal terms," declared Ambassador Jamieson Greer.
On March 12, the U.S. Trade Representative, under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, opened 60 investigations into the lack of effective enforcement by various countries of the prohibition on importing goods produced through forced labor.
Following these inquiries, it concluded that the failure of each of the 60 economies examined to effectively impose and enforce the prohibition on importing goods made with forced labor "is unreasonable or discriminatory" and constitutes a burden or restriction on U.S. trade, which enables the adoption of measures under Section 301(b)(1) of said Act.
Specifically, the U.S. Trade Representative believes that Canada; Ecuador; the European Union; Indonesia; Mexico; and Pakistan have failed to effectively enforce the prohibition on the entry of goods produced with forced labor.
Furthermore, another 54 economies have also neither established nor effectively enforced an import prohibition on goods made with forced labor.
These 54 economies are: Algeria; Angola; Argentina; Australia; Bahamas; Bahrain; Bangladesh; Brazil; Cambodia; Chile; China; Colombia; Costa Rica; Dominican Republic; Egypt; El Salvador; Guatemala; Guyana; Honduras; Hong Kong; India; Iraq; Israel; Japan; Jordan; Kazakhstan; Kuwait; Libya; Malaysia; Morocco; New Zealand; Nicaragua; Nigeria; Norway; Oman; Peru; Philippines; Qatar; Russia; Saudi Arabia; Singapore; South Africa; South Korea; Sri Lanka; Switzerland; Taiwan; Thailand; Trinidad and Tobago; Turkey; United Arab Emirates; United Kingdom; Uruguay; Venezuela; and Vietnam.
Consequently, none of the economies analyzed have managed to impose or satisfactorily apply the prohibition of importing products manufactured with forced labor, so the Trade Representative proposes to set additional tariffs for all goods originating from the 60 jurisdictions included in the investigation.
Thus, for countries that already have a ban on the import of goods made with forced labor, that have committed to implementing and enforcing it through a Reciprocal Trade Agreement, or that have established a partial regime that blocks the entry of certain products manufactured with forced labor, the proposal provides for an additional tariff surcharge of 10%. For the rest of the economies, an extra tariff of 12.5% is proposed.
"We will not tolerate this inequality any longer," stated Jamieson Greer, who stressed that, although some partners have taken initial steps to prevent the import of goods produced with forced labor, "each of our trading partners must do more to ensure that trade does not foster or perpetuate forced labor globally."