The U.S. Trade Representative Office opened sweeping Section 301 investigations into 60 countries over their failures to ban the importation of goods produced with forced labor.
Under the Trade Act, Section 301(b) targets unfair trade practices from abroad that are deemed unreasonable or discriminatory and burden or otherwise restrict U.S. commerce.
The Trump administration believes that may be true of 60 economies worldwide. Among the nations on the list are Canada, China, India, Iraq, Mexico, and South Korea. The European Union, with its 27 member states, is also being targeted.
USTR says the countries aren’t doing enough to impose and enforce measures to ban the production of imported goods with forced labor.
“For too long, American workers and firms have been forced to compete against foreign producers who may have an artificial cost advantage gained from the scourge of forced labor,” USTR Ambassador Jamieson Greer said in a statement late Thursday.
“These investigations will determine whether foreign governments have taken sufficient steps to prohibit the importation of goods produced with forced labor and how the failure to eradicate these abhorrent practices impacts U.S. workers and businesses,” he said.
Trade experts see the newly launched investigations as an alternative to the administration’s tariffs, which were struck down by the Supreme Court in a highly anticipated case last month.
The ruling applied to tariffs invoked under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. President Donald Trump worked around this restriction by imposing a universal 10% tariff, this time under Section 122 of the 1974 Trade Act. Shortly thereafter, he threatened to raise the rate to 15%. The 10% tariffs are set to last until July.
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USTR is scheduled to hold public hearings related to the Section 301 investigations on April 28, just over six weeks from now, after consulting with the listed foreign economies. The hearings may last until May 1, given the large number of countries under investigation.
The announcement came one day after USTR launched new Section 301 investigations regarding structural excess capacity and production in manufacturing sectors. That set of investigations is much smaller in scope, with only 16 countries facing scrutiny.