WASHINGTON — The U.S. extended a 10% tariff baseline hitting most major trading partners, prompting pushback from countries around the world while shoring up a protectionist wall that’s been a top priority for President Donald Trump despite its unpopularity at home.

In a 431-page filing in the Federal Register, the U.S. Trade Representative’s office laid out how it will collect duties of 10% to 12.5% on imports from almost 60 countries and the European Union, effective Friday and replacing 10% levies that lapsed at the same time. The rationale was that the targeted economies failed to prevent forced labor in their supply chains.

Some governments complained, though none signaled retaliation was imminent, and global equity markets largely shrugged off the change as a continuation of the status quo. Trade lawyers and former officials questioned this use of Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, calling it an overly broad application susceptible to fresh court challenges.

Plenty of uncertainty remains. One unknown is the duties’ effects on already-persistent inflation tied to the Iran war. Another is the prospect of more tariffs on China and others over excess industrial capacity under a separate 301 case, at a time when Trump wants to host Xi Jinping for a summit in September.

“The real risk lies ahead,” said Olu Sonola, head of U.S. economics at Fitch Ratings. “Excess-capacity tariffs are likely still to come and would stack on top of today’s measures. If they are broad enough to push tariff rates back toward 2025 levels, uncertainty will rise sharply and the hit to growth and inflation will become much harder to dismiss, especially if energy prices stay higher for longer.”

Bloomberg Economics calculated that the average effective U.S. tariff rate edged up 0.1 percentage point to 10.7% from Thursday.

Goods from some 10 trading partners deemed to have adopted forced-labor restrictions will be subject to 10% tariffs, including Mexico, the U.K., Canada and India. Duties on items from the European Union and Taiwan won’t exceed 10% and products from Japan, Switzerland and South Korea will be broadly capped at 12.5%, in a way that complies with the trade agreements they reached with the U.S., according to a Federal Register notice published Thursday.

Products from dozens of others will face a 12.5% charge, with certain other duties stacking on top. The formula also allows for some exemptions, such as for products that can’t be produced in the U.S. or where tariffs would cause economy-wide disruptions.

Asian nations described the Trump administration’s latest tariffs as baseless and unjustified, while stopping short of any retaliatory moves.

The decision “is very disappointing but not unexpected. President Trump campaigned on tariffs and this is the consequence,” said New Zealand Trade and Investment Minister Todd McClay.

Australia called the action “unjustified” and inconsistent with its free trade agreement, according to a statement from Trade Minister Don Farrell, who said the U.S. should remove the new duty.

Singapore pushed back against the new tax, with Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan saying there was no economic justification for the action. Japan also signaled its displeasure and is seeking reassurances that the levies are in keeping with the deal it struck with the U.S. last year.

The forced-labor duties are Trump’s broadest move toward restoring his protectionist tariff regime since his earlier levies were struck down by the Supreme Court. After that setback he instituted a 10% global import tax, which expired Friday. The timing of the new charges ensures there will be no gap between the two.

“The United States has had a forced labor import ban for nearly a century, and rigorously enforces it,” USTR Jamieson Greer said in a statement. “It’s well past time for our trading partners to do the same.”

Greer is spearheading Trump’s redesigned trade policy, targeting unfair practices abroad using more legally tested statutes that require months of procedures and public engagement. The more lawyerly approach stands in contrast to the immediacy and unpredictability of Trump’s tariff barrages through much of 2025.

EU response

One senior administration official rejected the idea that Trump was imposing the new tariffs purely as a replacement to the earlier duties that were struck down, but also said the president would use all the tools at his disposal and won’t allow his trade policy to be undermined by a court decision.

The administration telegraphed the move last month, when it released the outcome of its forced-labor investigation. Thursday’s announcement contained changes from the original proposal, including India securing a 10% levy instead of an initially threatened 12.5%.

Imports such as fuel, foods and fertilizers will be exempt from the new tariffs, as well as products such as automobiles, metals and drugs that are covered by separate, industry-specific levies. Items covered by the North American trade agreement with Mexico and Canada will also be excluded.

In a statement, the E.U. noted that its rate, capped at 10%, complies with bilateral trade deal the transatlantic partners hammered out over the past year. “It also provides positive momentum to continue the work on exploring further tariff exemptions and deepening cooperation across a broad range of areas,” the statement from Brussels said.

Saddling American importers with costs carries risks politically for Trump and his fellow Republicans, less than four months from midterm elections where the focus for Democrats is the elevated cost of living. That pressure is intensifying as the Iran war makes energy, food and other commodities more expensive.

Blake Harden, a trade expert with the consultancy Ernst & Young, said Trump isn’t finished with tariffs or disrupting the status quo.

Much ‘uncertainty’

“There’s still a lot of uncertainty hanging out there. We still have the opportunity for a lot of tariffs this year,” she said. “Prior to this week there was sort of just a bit of a lull and maybe it felt like there was more certainty than there is. There’s this thing I keep telling folks: There’s a lot to come still as we get into this year.”

Mentions of the word “tariff” during corporate earnings calls have been falling back since a peak in the second quarter of 2025, but may see a comeback now.

Tariffs were at the forefront of top executives’ worries in the first half of last year, when Trump implemented duties from so-called “Liberation Day” on April 2. The various trade deals that followed, as well as the overturn by the Supreme Court, relegated the tariffs worries to a secondary issue since.

The White House’s decision comes on the heels of a July 15 announcement that the U.S., also invoking Section 301, will begin charging importers a 25% tariff on imports of certain goods from Brazil following an investigation alleging that the country engaged in unfair trade practices.

This week, Trump proposed tariffs on Canadian goods under a never-before-used trade authority — Section 338 — though those would only affect about 5% of U.S. imports from its northern neighbor and would take effect Aug. 19 depending on how negotiations go.

The raft of 301 investigations includes the review of U.S. trading partners’ excess manufacturing capacity, though it’s unclear when the findings of that probe will be released, or whether any future duties from that investigation would be stacked on top of those proposed under the forced labor investigation.

Greer said recently that the excess capacity probe is taking longer than the investigation into forced labor. “We’re trying to make sure that we’re actually living up to the letter of the law,” he said in an interview with Bloomberg Television last week.

—With assistance from Michael Msika, Alicia Diaz, Laura Curtis and Shadab Nazmi.

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