The Trump administration is launching tariff-related investigations into 16 major trade partners, including China and the European Union, potentially leading to new tariffs. The probes will focus on trade practices and forced labor concerns.
The probes could result in fresh tariffs on imports from 16 major trade partners, including China and the European Union .Donald Trump during a Make America Wealthy Again event in the Rose Garden of the White House on Wednesday April 2, 2025.
The Trump administration announced Wednesday that it will launch a wave of tariff-related investigations into more than a dozen U.S. trade partners, the next phase in President Donald Trump's sweeping global trade wars. In a process that is likely to result in a fresh round of tariffs in the near future, the Office of U.S. Trade Representative is opening the formal probes into major trade partners that include the European Union, Mexico and China — each of which ranks among the top five sources of U.S. imports. Singapore, Switzerland, Norway, Indonesia, Malaysia, Cambodia, Thailand, Korea, Vietnam, Taiwan, Bangladesh, Japan and India will also be the targets of investigations under the trade statute known as Section 301.“These investigations will focus on economies that we have evidence appear to exhibit structural excess capacity and production in various manufacturing sectors, such as through larger, persistent trade surpluses or underutilized or unused capacity,” said U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer on a call with reporters Wednesday.Greer said the U.S. would also be moving to launch an investigation related to the import of goods made with “forced labor,” in a second announcement set for later this week. Goods produced using forced labor are already banned from U.S. import under Section 307 of the Tariff Act of 1930. This ban was strengthened in 2021 when Congress passed the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which specifically targeted goods made in the Xinjiang region of China.on all trading partners that was imposed after the Supreme Court struck down many of President Donald Trump’s country-specific tariffs in late February. In a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court found that President Donald Trump did not have the authority to impose his sweeping tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act .Greer said his goal was for the investigations announced Wednesday to be wrapped up by the time that 150-day period ends. “There are potential options for the president,” said Greer. “We are much more focused on doing the Section 301 investigations, and bringing them to conclusion as quickly as possible," he said.Trading partners named in the new action Wednesday are expected to fiercely protest the latest moves by the Trump administration. Especially after many of them have reached framework trade deals over the course of the past year.Trump negotiated during his first termon the final ratification process in the wake of the Supreme Court decision and several other tense issues between the two allies. One top member of the European Parliament said the Supreme Court ruling — paired with Trump’s new 10% duties — had created “pure tariff chaos.” President Donald Trump slammed the Supreme Court after its 6-3 opinion invalidated most of his administration’s sweeping tariffs, vowing to find alternative legal paths. “No one can make sense of it anymore — only open questions and growing uncertainty for the EU and other US trading partners,” wrote Bernd Lange, head of the European Parliament’s trade committee, inIn January, at the World Economic Forum in the Swiss mountain village of Davos, Trump told attendees that he had imposed significantly higher tariffs on the country than its neighbors because of a personal grievance. "The, I guess, prime minister, I don't think president ... called, a woman. And she was very repetitive," Trump said in a speech. Describing Switzerland's then-president Karin Keller-Sutter, Trump said she,"kept saying the same thing over and over, 'we are a small country.'" "And she just rubbed me the wrong way, I'll be honest with you," Trump recounted. He said that after hanging up, he decided the tariff on Switzerland would be 39%. "Then all hell really broke out, and I was paid visits by everybody," he said,"Rolex came to see me."Tariffs or customs duties are a tax on products purchased from abroad, and they are used by practically all countries
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Trump launches the next phase of his trade wars with new investigations of key partnersThe probes could result in fresh tariffs on imports from 16 major trade partners, including China and the European Union.
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