On July 23, 2026, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) took final action in its Section 301 investigations into whether 60 trading partners impose and effectively enforce a prohibition on the importation of goods produced with forced labor. As described in an accompanying fact sheet and a Federal Register notice, USTR is imposing additional ad valorem duties of 10% or 12.5% on substantially all products of these economies, subject to exemptions. According to USTR, the action "applies to the top 60 U.S. trade partners covering 99.4% of U.S. imports." The additional duties take effect for goods entered for consumption on or after 12:01 a.m. eastern time on July 24, 2026. The action follows USTR's June 2, 2026, proposed action, on which USTR received more than 1,600 written comments and held public hearings July 7-9, 2026.

What changed from the proposed to the final action

As USTR summarized, "[t]rading partners that have made commitments to adopt, and effectively enforce, forced labor import prohibitions will have a 10% tariff, and trading partners that have failed to adopt a forced labor import prohibition will have a 12.5% tariff rate." The final action retains the two-tier structure of the June 2 proposal but refines the country assignments and exemptions following USTR's review of the comments and a second round of public hearings. In announcing the action, Ambassador Greer stated that he was "encouraged by the trading partners who have moved quickly to adopt forced labor import prohibitions, and look[s] forward to ensuring their effective enforcement."

Under the final action, a 10% rate applies to 17 economies that impose a forced labor import prohibition, have committed to one through an Agreement on Reciprocal Trade (ART), or maintain a partial regime: Argentina, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Canada, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, India, Indonesia, Jordan, Malaysia, Mexico, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Trinidad and Tobago, and the United Kingdom. Five of these — Honduras, India, Jordan, Sri Lanka, and Trinidad and Tobago — had been slated for the 12.5% rate under the proposal and moved to 10% in the final action, reflecting steps USTR credited during the comment period. A 12.5% rate continues to apply to all other economies investigated.

For certain products from the European Union (EU), Taiwan, Japan, Korea, and Switzerland, the final action calculates the 10% or 12.5% tariff after considering the normal Most-

Favored-Nation (MFN) tariff rate, instead of simply adding a flat new tariff. This marks a change from the proposal, under which the EU and Taiwan had been slated for a flat 10% rate and Japan, Korea, and Switzerland for a flat 12.5% rate.

On textiles, the general "textile mechanism" described in June was replaced with concrete tariff-rate quotas (TRQs) for Bangladesh, Cambodia, Indonesia, and Malaysia, tied to their importation of US cotton and textile inputs.

Exemptions

Annexes I and II exclude a broad set of products from the additional duties, including:

• articles and parts subject to Section 232 tariffs;
• raw materials whose coverage could cause domestic supply shortages, and products that could cause economy-wide disruptions;
• goods that cannot be grown or produced in sufficient quantities in the United States or sourced elsewhere;
• products whose exemption would encourage economies to enact and enforce a forced labor import ban (new in the final action);
• informational materials, donations, and accompanied baggage; and
• goods qualifying under the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), and textiles and apparel entering duty-free under the Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA-DR).

Effective date and next steps

The Federal Register notice states that the additional duties "are applicable with respect to products that are entered for consumption, or withdrawn from warehouse for consumption, on or after 12:01 a.m. eastern time on July 24, 2026," subject to a limited in-transit exception for goods loaded and in transit on the final mode of transport before that time. This effective date coincides with the expiration of the Section 122 balance-of-payments tariffs, which reach their 150-day statutory sunset at 12:01 a.m. on July 24, 2026.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) issued implementing guidance in CSMS #69326983, "GUIDANCE: Section 301 Forced Labor Import Duties," which sets out the new Chapter 99 HTSUS headings and the corresponding exemption provisions. The guidance also addresses foreign-trade-zone treatment and the entry-summary reporting sequence for stacked trade remedies.