President Trump on Thursday imposed new tariffs of 10 percent to 12.5 percent on imports from 60 trading partners, taking effect at 12:01 a.m. Friday as a 150-day emergency levy expires and moving his broad-based import tax onto legal ground the Supreme Court has left intact.

The new duties, which cover about 99.4 percent of American purchases from abroad, keep the tariff wall standing after February's 6-3 decision in Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump, which struck down the administration's first-round levies. The White House shifted the legal basis from the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which the court rejected, to Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, the same statute Trump used to tariff China during his first term and one that has survived court challenge.

The rationale

The administration cast the tariffs as a response to inadequate enforcement of bans on goods produced by forced labor.

"The United States has had a forced labor import ban for nearly a century, and rigorously enforces it; it's well past time for our trading partners to do the same," U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said in a statement.

Section 301 lets the president impose duties on countries the U.S. finds to engage in "unjustifiable," "unreasonable" or "discriminatory" trade practices. The Section 122 emergency tariff that expires Friday, imposed after the Supreme Court decision, is statutorily capped at 150 days.

Some goods are exempted, including oil, gas and fertilizer. Imports that qualify for duty-free treatment under the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement are also spared. India, initially set at 12.5 percent, was moved to 10 percent after tightening its own forced-labor enforcement, a senior administration official told the AP.

The bill

The Yale Budget Lab estimates the combined effect of the forced-labor duties and new tariffs on Brazil and Canada will cost the average U.S. household an additional $1,100 this year. Marc Goldwein, senior policy director at the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, characterized the broader Trump tariff program as a "$3 trillion ... middle-class tax increase" spread over 10 years, adding that public backlash so far has been muted.

Manufacturing, the tariffs' stated purpose, has not rebounded. The United States has lost 75,000 factory jobs since Trump took office, and about a quarter of the average factory's capacity remains unused, high by historical standards, the Christian Science Monitor reported. Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller said this month the tariffs' inflationary effect so far has been "largely over," though he warned new trade actions could revive it if importers pass costs to consumers.

The counterparties

Brazil, hit with a 12.5 percent rate, called the U.S. justification "arbitrary and unjustified" and said it would trigger its reciprocity law and file a complaint at the World Trade Organization. Chile's Undersecretary for International Economic Relations Paula Estevez said her country has "solid labor institutions, a robust regulatory framework and a firm commitment to the prevention and eradication of forced labor," and called application of the measure inconsistent with those standards.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said, "There is no so-called forced labour in China, and we oppose using this as an excuse for political manipulation." International human rights groups have documented forced-labor practices among Muslim ethnic minorities in China's Xinjiang region, the BBC reported. Canadian Trade Minister Dominic LeBlanc called the U.S. move "not unexpected."

Thursday's action follows Monday's proclamation of a 50 percent duty on Canadian goods under a never-used provision of the 1930 Tariff Act, Tuesday's announcement of a 100 percent tariff on foreign generic drugs beginning in 2028, and last week's 25 percent duty on Brazil.

Skeptics

Whether forced labor is the actual driver of the policy is contested even by economists who accept the scope of the underlying problem. Caroline Freund, dean of the UC San Diego School of Global Policy and Strategy, told the BBC that the administration was "looking for a legal reason to put the tariffs in and that they can maintain them," and that the real goals are the trade deficit and domestic manufacturing. Rep. Richard Neal of Massachusetts, the top Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee, called the forced-labor rationale "too convenient to be taken seriously." Martina Vandenberg, founder and president of The Human Trafficking Legal Center, said import bans can be an effective tool but warned that without phased implementation the tariffs risk becoming "thin slips of paper with no enforcement." Today's coverage draws entirely from center-lean wire and mainstream sources; conservative-press and progressive-press reactions to the forced-labor framing were not on the record by press time.

What's next

The U.S. Trade Representative is still investigating 16 countries, accounting for about 70 percent of U.S. imports, over allegations of overproduction that depresses global prices, a probe likely to produce the next round of Section 301 duties. Trump's separate 50 percent tariff on Canada takes effect in 30 days if the two governments do not reach agreement first. The Nov. 3 midterm elections are 102 days away.