What are the new Section 301 tariffs for forced labor?

It’s the question most trade professionals are fielding right now: how does the latest tariff action affect our sourcing? Leadership just asked you, and now you’re tasked with finding the answer.

Here’s the number that should stop you: the Section 301 tariff action covers 60 economies that, together, account for 99.4% of all U.S. imports, according to The Office of the United States Trade Representative’s (USTR) own fact sheet. This isn’t a dispute with one trading partner. It’s very close to the entire global trading system. The reason is forced labor: USTR has determined that these 60 economies have failed to ban or effectively enforce against imports made with forced labor, and this action is the response.

The tariffs took effect July 24, 2026, at 12:01 a.m. Eastern, with a narrow in-transit exception that closed July 28. With 60 countries in scope, “am I affected” isn’t really the question anymore. The question is which of your suppliers, and which of your products, are exposed, and at what rate.

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A quick history: How the 2026 Section 301 tariff action came together

What the 301 tariff action on forced labor actually does

Why the Section 301 tariff action is harder to manage than it looks

Why this moment calls for reliable technology, not manual tracking

Where this new Section 301 tariff action leaves trade teams

A quick history: How the 2026 Section 301 tariff action came together

This is a powerful, but process-bound, trade tool: it gives USTR the authority to respond when a foreign country’s acts, policies, or practices unreasonably burden or restrict U.S. commerce. Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 requires a formal USTR investigation, a comment period, and hearings before the government can act. This action moved through each of those required steps before taking effect.

USTR opened investigations on March 12, 2026, into whether each of the 60 economies had failed to impose or effectively enforce a ban on imports made with forced labor. Public hearings followed in April, drawing nearly 60 witnesses. USTR published its findings and proposed remedies on June 2, and a second comment and hearing round ran through early July. In total, USTR received more than 2,100 public comments across both rounds. Final action was announced July 23, 2026, effective the very next day. That’s a same-day turnaround for trade teams, essentially zero lead time to prepare.

The legal theory here is worth noting. The “unreasonable or discriminatory” practice at issue isn’t a trade imbalance or a pricing dispute. It’s the failure to ban and enforce against forced-labor-made goods. USTR frames the action as targeting forced labor at its source, and positions the U.S. as the only country that both bans and actively enforces against these imports.

What the 301 tariff action on forced labor actually does

The structure has two base tiers. Economies with a full or partial forced-labor import ban, or a reciprocal-trade commitment, face a 10% additional duty. That group includes India, the UK, and Mexico, among others. Everyone else faces 12.5%, including China, Brazil, and the EU. The EU is one of five economies whose actual rate is capped rather than flat.

This is where precision matters: five economies — the EU, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, and Switzerland — don’t get a flat add-on. Instead, they get a Most-Favored Nation (MFN)-rate cap. This means that Section 301 duty only applies enough to bring the combined rate up to 10% or 12.5%, so depending on a product’s existing MFN rate, some entries may owe little or no additional duty at all. For example, picture a Swiss-made component that already carries a 2% MFN rate: the Section 301 duty would only add enough to bring the combined rate to 12.5%, 10.5% additional 301 duty, not a flat 12.5% stacked on top.

Exclusions exist, but they’re narrow and technical: informational materials, goods already subject to Section 232 tariffs (so the two regimes don’t stack), specific products named in the action’s annexes, and certain country-specific carve-outs tied to forced-labor enforcement commitments. A planned tariff-rate quota (TRQ) for textile and apparel imports from Bangladesh, Cambodia, Indonesia, and Malaysia has been announced but isn’t operational. USTR has indicated it won’t be feasible until around September 1, 2026, so the 10% duty applies until then.

Why the Section 301 tariff action is harder to manage than it looks

The core challenge is this: it requires product-level, entry-level analysis, not country-level estimates. The same country can carry several different effective rates depending on HTSUS classification, MFN rate, exclusion status, and any Section 232 overlap.

Sourcing outside any single country doesn’t create the safety margin it might have under a narrower action. With 60 economies in scope, there are very few places left to source from that fall outside it entirely.

The time pressure is real, not theoretical. Goods in transit, sitting in bonded warehouses, or scheduled for near-term entry needed review against a deadline that had already passed by the time many companies were still assessing their exposure.

And this tariff action doesn’t replace a separate obligation: forced-labor import restrictions and CBP enforcement continue independently of it. Paying the duty doesn’t resolve forced-labor supply-chain risk. These are two different compliance programs running in parallel, and treating forced-labor import restrictions and CBP enforcement as a single issue brings a risk of its own. Nor is the picture finished. TRQ mechanics, additional exclusions, and HTSUS implementation guidance are all still to come.

Why this moment calls for reliable technology, not manual tracking

60 economies, two base tiers, five MFN-cap exceptions, product-level exclusions buried in annexes, and a forced-labor compliance track running in parallel: this is no longer a spreadsheet-and-news-alert problem. It’s a data problem, and closing it takes current, structured data at the same scale as the action itself. ONESOURCE Global Trade Content is one solution that maintains harmonized tariff schedules and regulatory data across more than 220 countries and territories, refreshed within about a business day of a regulatory change, turning “which of my 60 countries actually owes what” into a lookup instead of a research project.

The stakes of getting it wrong are real. Misclassifying an origin or an HTS code isn’t a paperwork issue. It’s the difference between 0% and 12.5% on a given entry, multiplied across a supply chain touching dozens of countries at once. That’s exactly the kind of high-stakes decision where the output has to be traceable back to authoritative source data, which is the standard behind Thomson Reuters Fiduciary-Grade AI™: content grounded in curated, expert-validated sources that produces results a trade professional can verify and defend on audit. For the classification decision itself, ONESOURCE Global Classification powered by CoCounsel applies that same standard, suggesting HS codes from prior expert classifications and producing a transparent, audit-ready rationale for each one.

When nearly every trading partner is in scope at the same time, watching the news and updating a spreadsheet stops being a viable compliance strategy.

Where this new Section 301 tariff action leaves trade teams

Near-total country coverage. Product-level complexity. A compliance obligation that’s still evolving. And one deadline already behind us, with more likely ahead.

When 99.4% of your imports are technically in scope, case by case isn’t a strategy. It’s a liability.

With rates, exclusions, and deadlines shifting by country and by product, staying current isn’t optional anymore. ONESOURCE Global Trade Content keeps that data current across more than 220 countries and territories, so your team can move from tracking headlines to managing exposure.

Explore ONESOURCE Global Trade Content and Global Classification powered by CoCounsel to see how these solutions can fit your compliance strategy.