President Trump has rolled out a fresh wave of tariffs targeting more than 80 countries to replace an expiring 10% global duty, triggering immediate pushback from longtime U.S. allies and major trading partners around the world.
The new measure, part of Trump’s continued push for aggressive trade policy despite repeated setbacks in court, sets tariffs of either 10% or 12.5% on dozens of nations, including the UK, Mexico, Canada, Australia, India, China and all 27 European Union member states. It effectively takes the place of the blanket 10% tariff Trump introduced in February, which came just after the Supreme Court struck down much of his earlier tariff framework as unlawful.
U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer announced the new levies late Thursday, framing them under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, a provision aimed at countries that permit forced labor in their supply chains. Trump had signaled shortly after February’s Supreme Court ruling that his administration would pursue investigations into unfair trade practices as a path toward more permanent tariffs.
Greer said in a statement that the U.S. has enforced a forced-labor import ban for nearly a century and argued it’s time for trading partners to follow suit, adding that he welcomed those already moving to adopt similar prohibitions and intended to ensure they’re properly enforced.
Read more about this topic: New U.S. tariffs on Brazil take effect today. Flávio Bolsonaro and Lula’s party are already blaming each other for it
Reaction from abroad was swift and largely negative. Australia and Brazil both called the new tariffs unjustified and said they intend to push for their removal, while Norway’s foreign minister said there was simply no basis for them. European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said the bloc would seek clarification from Washington, noting that Europe had upheld its end of a transatlantic trade agreement reached last year and viewed the new tariffs as a genuine shock.
Canada, one of America’s largest trading partners, pushed back forcefully, arguing it shouldn’t be targeted given its own record as a leader in combating forced-labor imports. Matthew Holmes, executive vice-president of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, said that if the real goal is addressing forced labor, the better path would be a coordinated, multilateral approach, adding that the timing, arriving just as earlier tariff rounds were set to expire, seemed less than coincidental.
Tariffs have long been central to Trump’s economic worldview, which he’s framed around protecting American jobs and manufacturing, narrowing trade deficits, and countering what he considers unfair treatment by trading partners; he’s repeatedly called “tariff” his favorite word in the English language.
Constitutionally, the power to levy taxes rests with Congress, not the president. Still, last April, on what Trump dubbed “liberation day,” he announced a baseline 10% tariff invoking the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, a law that grants the president authority to regulate international trade during a declared national emergency.
Read more about this topic: Tariffs: Why is Trump taxing goods from Canada? (with video)
That approach took a serious hit in February, when the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that the power to impose tariffs in peacetime remains with Congress. Trump quickly pivoted to another 10% tariff structure under a previously untested trade law, one that limited the duration of those tariffs to 150 days; that window expired just after midnight Friday.
This latest round relies instead on Section 301, a provision that has historically drawn controversy and been used only sparingly, according to a Brookings Institution analysis published in March.
Alan Wolff, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics and a former deputy director-general of the World Trade Organization, wrote Thursday that the new tariffs once again raise the question of whether the president actually has legal authority to set U.S. tariff policy, a power the Constitution assigns to Congress.
Wolff argued the answer is no, that Congress never delegated, and constitutionally cannot delegate, authority that broad to the executive branch, and predicted that if challenged, the Supreme Court would likely strike the tariffs down as executive overreach.
Read more about this topic: Trump imposes 50% tariffs on most goods from Canada (with video)
Beyond the legal uncertainty, the tariffs have also proven broadly unpopular with the American public, a potential liability for Republicans heading into November’s midterms. A Harris Poll conducted exclusively for the Guardian earlier this year found that seven in ten Americans said they were paying higher prices because of Trump’s tariffs, and 72% of voters said the tariffs have hurt consumers more than helped them.
That sentiment held even among Republican voters, 64% of whom agreed the tariffs had pushed prices higher, with 60% calling the overall impact negative.
American households have also been squeezed by fallout from the conflict in the Middle East, which has driven up energy and gas prices and helped push inflation to a three-year high this past May.
The administration continues to insist its trade agenda has benefited consumers. During a tense Senate hearing Wednesday, Greer appeared to reject the idea that tariffs had raised prices at all.
Read more about this topic: Canada ready to escalate trade talks following US tariffs
Pressed by Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren on whether the tariffs had increased costs for American families, Greer answered simply, “No,” pointing to core inflation falling to 2.6% year-over-year as an improvement over January 2025. Core inflation excludes food and energy costs, and overall inflation currently sits slightly higher than it was when Joe Biden left office.
