July 23, 2026
New Section 301 Forced Labor Tariffs: What Importers Need to Know
July 23, 2026
The U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) just reset the tariff landscape again. On July 23, Ambassador Jamieson Greer announced final action in a set of Section 301 investigations into forced labor, imposing tariffs of 10% or 12.5% on 60 economies that together account for roughly 99% of what the U.S. imports. The new rates take effect at 12:01 a.m. Eastern on Friday, July 24, the same moment the temporary 10% global tariff expires.
If you import into the United States, here's the short version: your landed costs probably won't jump much on day one, because most goods move from a 10% temporary rate to a 10% or 12.5% permanent rate. The bigger story is durability as these tariffs are designed to stay.
What actually changed
Back in February, the administration put a temporary 10% global tariff in place after the Supreme Court struck down its earlier, broader tariff regime. That stopgap (Called Section 122 Tariffs) was always going to expire. The question was what would replace it.
The answer is Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974. Since 2017, it's a well-worn part of trade law that lets the President of the United States act after a formal investigation, and trade attorneys generally consider it more legally durable than the authority the Supreme Court rejected. USTR ran the full process here: two rounds of public hearings, consultations with more than 45 governments, and over 2,100 public comments across the investigation. Once these duties are in place, they can stay indefinitely (with reviews every 4 years) and the USTR together with the President can adjust them without going back to Congress.
The stated goal is forced labor. The U.S. has banned imports made with forced labor for nearly a century, and USTR is now using tariffs to pressure trading partners to adopt and enforce similar bans of their own. Countries that already have those laws, or that committed to them through an Agreement on Reciprocal Trade, landed at 10%. Countries without them are at 12.5%.
The rates at a glance
Rates aren't necessarily permanent per country. India is the clearest example: it was slated for 12.5% in the June preliminary report, then moved to 10% after passing a law combating forced labor. A senior administration official said countries can keep moving from 12.5% to 10% by making similar progress. Notably, the administration has signaled it doesn't currently see a path to 0% for anyone, since it doesn't yet view any investigated economy as fully enforcing its labor protections.
What's exempt
Plenty of trade falls outside this action. The exemptions matter as much as the rates, so check your product mix against them:
- Goods already covered by Section 232 national security tariffs, including steel, aluminum, automobiles, and auto parts. These aren't subject to the new duties.
- Certain food and agricultural imports, fertilizers, and energy products.
- Informational materials, donations, and accompanied baggage.
- Products USTR carved out because tariffing them would create supply problems, cause economy-wide disruption, hit goods the U.S. can't produce in sufficient quantity or source elsewhere, or work against the goal of encouraging partners to enforce forced labor bans.
- Note: Unlike IEEPA tariffs, there are country-specific lists of exempted products that only apply to those countries. These specific countries also benefit from the “all country” exemptions as listed above.
The full, specific exemption list lives in the Federal Register Notice. If a meaningful share of your volume sits near one of these categories, that's the document to read line by line, or to review with your customs team.
What it means for importers
For most importers, the immediate cost impact is modest. Moving from a temporary 10% to a permanent 10% or 12.5% is a smaller shock than the headlines suggest. Three things deserve your attention now.
First, know your exposure by country and by product. The difference between 10% and 12.5% is real at scale, and whether your goods qualify for an exemption can matter more than the headline rate. Map your country-of-origin data against the three tiers and the exemption categories.
Second, plan for permanence. Unlike the temporary tariff this replaces, Section 301 duties can stay in place for years. This isn't a rate to wait out. It's a cost to design around through sourcing decisions, consolidation, duty mitigation, and drawback where you qualify.
Third, watch for more to come. Trade experts point out that several other tariff actions are planned in the coming months, and country rates under this action can shift as governments change their forced labor laws. The environment will keep moving.
How Flexport helps you stay ahead
We're already mapping this action against our customers' lanes and product catalogs. If you want to understand your exposure under the new Section 301 tariffs, model the cost impact across your top lanes, or pressure-test your exemption eligibility, your Flexport team is ready to walk through it with you.
To learn more about, join our webinar on July 24. Register here.
Not working with Flexport? Get in touch.
Sources: USTR press release, July 23, 2026
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July 23, 2026
