Just hours before a temporary levy on global imports was set to expire, the Trump administration issued a fresh wave of tariffs on more than 80 countries late on Thursday, ranging from 10% to 12.5%. The UK is among those hit—facing a 10% universal tariff on all goods, on top of any duties already imposed on individual products. The move is the president’s latest effort to continue imposing global levies without congressional approval, despite a Supreme Court ruling in February that found he had illegally used executive power to enact his trade policies.
The new tariffs, which take effect on Friday morning, replace an identical levy that expires on Friday. Officially, they are based on claims that key economic partners have failed to properly tackle forced labour. The Office of the US Trade Representative said the duties apply to the top 60 US trade partners, covering 99.4% of US imports. Countries that “have made commitments to adopt, and effectively enforce, forced labour import prohibitions”—including the UK, Canada, the European Union, India and Mexico—will face a 10% tariff. Those that have “failed to adopt a forced labour import prohibition”, such as Australia, Brazil, China and Japan, will be subject to a 12.5% rate.
“US imposes 10%-12.5% tariffs on UK and 80+ countries, circumventing Supreme Court ruling on forced labour grounds.”
But US trade expert Caroline Freund, dean of the UC San Diego School of Global Policy and Strategy, told the BBC’s Today programme the justification was a cover. “I think they were looking for a legal reason to put the tariffs in and that they can maintain them because their goals … is about the trade deficit and it is about US manufacturing, it is not about forced labour,” she said.
The levies are likely to raise costs for businesses and consumers, although the impact could be softened by the number of exempted goods, according to Wendy Cutler, an economic security expert at the Asia Society Policy Institute. She added that most trading partners would be disappointed and were likely to focus on ways to “reduce their dependence on the US” by making deals with other countries.
For the UK, the new regime has already drawn sharp criticism. William Bain, head of the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC), told the BBC that the UK had lost its comparative advantage against the European Union. The EU has a 10% all-inclusive deal for tariffs on its goods, while the UK faces 10% universal tariffs on top of any individual duties. “So there will be some concerns in the business community this morning about w…” he said.
US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer defended the action, saying: “Today’s action will begin to correct what is both a human rights abuse and distortive trade practice to improve the welfare of workers everywhere.” But with the Supreme Court having ruled 6-3 that the 1977 law Trump originally used did not grant him tariff powers during peacetime, the legal foundation of this new wave remains fragile. For now, British businesses are left counting the cost of a trade war that shows no sign of cooling.