🔥Replace global taxes with forced labor taxes on 60 economies

🔴Starting July 24, the USTR imposes additional tariffs of 10% or 12.5% on 60 economies, on the very day the global 10% under Section 122 expires. The scope covers 99.4% of U.S. imports. Section 122 is Trump’s replacement measure after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the IEEPA tariff in February.
🔴Four tariff-rate groups:
- Flat 10%: 17 economies, including the UK, India, Canada, Mexico, Indonesia, Malaysia, Cambodia
- MFN-offset 10%: the EU, Taiwan
- MFN-offset 12.5%: Japan, South Korea, Switzerland
- Flat 12.5%: the remaining 38 economies, including Vietnam, China, Brazil, Russia, Thailand, Australia
The exemption coverage is very broad, including goods already subject to Section 232, civil aircraft, patent-protected pharmaceuticals, energy, seafood, strategic minerals, and Canada/Mexico goods under USMCA.
-> The overall tariff level is almost unchanged, as the average tariff only nudges from 11.0% to 11.2%; the Section 301 layer rises from 1.6 to 4.4 percentage points, offset exactly by what Section 122 leaves behind.
🔴Especially for Vietnam:
- The 12.5% rate reaches about 37% of export turnover to the U.S. after exemptions
- Decree 292/2026/NĐ-CP bans the import of forced labor goods, issued on July 22, two days before the tariff start date.
- Two Section 301 investigations are still pending without a conclusion: intellectual property and excess production capacity
- The 0% textiles and garments tariff quota is only for Bangladesh, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia
-> The news “The U.S. imposes new tariffs on 60 countries” only brings a macro delta of 0.2 percentage points. Most importantly, it’s not the tariff rate, but the durability of the legal framework. Section 122 lasts 150 days, while Section 301 does not—and it has already survived litigation from the first term. The tariff baseline hasn’t changed at all; it just changes names. No headline even needs a line to raise tariffs.