Shafaqna Pakistan: The US Trade Representative (USTR) has proposed new tariffs on imports from 60 economies, including Pakistan and India, citing what it describes as inadequate action against forced labour. The proposal is part of the Trump administration’s efforts to reshape its tariff policy following recent legal challenges.
According to a government filing, the proposed duties range from 10% to 12.5% and will be subject to a public consultation period before any final decision is taken.
The proposal follows investigations launched by Washington into several trading partners, including China, the European Union, and Japan.
The investigations examined whether these economies had taken sufficient measures to prevent the import of goods produced through forced labour and whether such practices affected US trade and commerce.
On Tuesday, the USTR stated that 54 of the economies under review had “failed to impose and effectively enforce a forced labour import prohibition.”
This group includes China, Vietnam, Taiwan, the United Kingdom and India.
Six other economies — Canada, Ecuador, the EU, Indonesia, Mexico and Pakistan — were deemed not to have effectively enforced such prohibitions.
“The failure of our most important trading partners to address the importation of goods made with forced labour is unacceptable,” USTR Jamieson Greer said in a statement.
“This creates a dynamic where American workers are forced to compete globally on an unlevel playing field,” he added.
“We will no longer tolerate this disparity,” he said, adding that “each of our trading partners must do more to ensure that trade does not perversely encourage and entrench forced labour globally”.
The USTR said it determined that it would impose 10pc duties related to the forced labour investigation on imports from Canada, Ecuador, the EU, Indonesia, Mexico, Pakistan, Argentina, Bangladesh, Cambodia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Indonesia, Malaysia, Taiwan and Britain.
The trade agency said it would impose additional duties of 12.5pc on the remaining 45 countries that it investigated.
But the proposed tariffs come with various exemptions such as beef, coffee and certain fruits and nuts.
Goods from Canada and Mexico that comply with a North American free trade pact will also be exempt — as will certain textiles and apparel.
The public is invited to provide written comments by July 6, and the USTR will subsequently hold hearings.
The announcement comes ahead of the July 24 expiration of a 10pc temporary tariff imposed by the Trump administration on February 20, the day the Supreme Court struck down US President Donald Trump’s tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.
Source: Dunya News
