US President Donald Trump has announced new tariffs aimed at addressing forced labour in global supply chains, with Australia facing a 12.5 per cent duty on its goods.
U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said in a statement: “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. Today’s action will begin to correct what is both a human rights abuse and a distortive trade practice to improve the welfare of workers everywhere.”
Greer has previously pledged that for countries that have reached trade deals with Washington capping U.S. tariff rates, the new forced labour duties would not push them above those caps. The deals include anti-forced labour provisions.
Under the final determination, the U.S. will impose a 10% duty on goods from Argentina, Bangladesh, Britain, Cambodia, Canada, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, India, Indonesia, Jordan, Malaysia, Mexico, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Trinidad and Tobago.
The European Union, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and Switzerland were assigned rates that, combined with pre-existing most-favoured-nation tariff rates, would total 10% or 12.5%. The remaining 38 countries, including China and Australia, were assigned a 12.5% rate.
Defence Minister Richard Marles responded to the move, telling Sky News Australia: “We have one of the strongest regimes in the world; we stand with pride in terms of how our legal regime works in respect of forced labour. In relation to tariffs, we continue to make the argument to the United States that we want to see free trade.”