US imposes forced-labour tariffs on 60 economies; India placed in lower 10% band

The use of tariffs as instruments of trade and foreign policy has deep statutory roots in US law. Three provisions are most relevant to the current wave of escalation. Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act permits tariffs on national security grounds and was used to impose duties on steel and aluminium. Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 allows the executive to act against unfair foreign trade practices — including intellectual property violations, market access barriers, and, as now invoked, failures to prohibit forced labour. Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930, historically dormant, permits discriminatory duties on countries that disadvantage US commerce and has been recently revived. These authorities vest broad discretionary power in the executive, but US courts have increasingly scrutinised whether their invocation meets statutory requirements — a tension that has directly shaped the current tariff architecture.

The multilateral framework governing tariffs is anchored in the World Trade Organization (WTO), specifically the Most Favoured Nation (MFN) principle under GATT Article I, which prohibits discriminatory tariff treatment among members. The US has increasingly relied on GATT Article XXI (national security exception) and human-rights framings to shield its measures from WTO dispute panels. However, the WTO's Appellate Body has been effectively paralysed since the US blocked new appointments to it, leaving dispute resolution in limbo and reducing the systemic check on unilateral action. This institutional vacuum has emboldened the use of domestic trade statutes as substitutes for multilateral negotiation.