Washington, 24 July 2026 — EBM Newsdesk Analysis — By Nick Staunton
On 23 July 2026, US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer signed off duties of 10 to 12.5 per cent on goods from roughly 60 economies, the European Union among them, one day before the temporary surcharge holding the whole structure together was due to lapse. The stated grievance is not cars, or steel, or the deficit. It is that America’s trading partners have failed to ban imports made with forced labour, something Washington has policed at its own border since 1930. That is an awkward charge to answer in Brussels, where a law doing exactly that was passed two years ago and still is not switched on
For European exporters the rate is not the story. It lands roughly where the Turnberry deal already put it, and Washington has taken care to structure it so that it sits inside the 15 per cent ceiling rather than on top of it. What changed is the foundation. These duties rest on Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, which carries no rate cap, no expiry date and no need for a declared emergency. Europe has spent eighteen months negotiating with a tariff regime that kept falling over in court. It is now dealing with one that probably will not.
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SubscribeWhat actually changed
The measure replaces the flat 10 per cent global surcharge imposed under Section 122 after the Supreme Court struck down the emergency-powers tariffs in February. That surcharge was always a bridge. Section 122 allows a maximum of 150 days, and those days ran out on Friday.
Countries with a forced-labour import ban in place, or a commitment to introduce one, pay 10 per cent. That group includes the EU, the UK, Canada, Mexico and India. Everyone else pays 12.5 per cent, including China, Japan, South Korea and Switzerland. Goods already caught by the separate steel and aluminium tariffs are not double-charged. Certain energy products, fertilisers, aviation parts, pharmaceuticals and industrial inputs are carved out entirely.
There is also a textile arrangement, which is worth understanding because it tells you what this is really about. A volume of apparel and textile imports can enter at a reduced rate, and the size of that volume depends on how much American cotton and textile input the exporting country buys. That is not a human rights mechanism. It is a purchase order dressed as one.
Why the legal basis matters more than the rate
Section 301 hands the power to the Trade Representative rather than the president. That distinction sounds technical and is not. The Supreme Court’s February ruling turned on the president lacking authority to tax imports under emergency powers. Section 301 was written by Congress precisely to let an agency respond to foreign practices that burden American commerce, and it has already survived a Federal Circuit challenge that the Supreme Court declined to review in June.
USTR also did the paperwork. It opened the investigations in March, took written comments, held three days of hearings, received over 1,600 submissions and heard from more than a hundred witnesses. All of that is procedural armour. It is exactly what was missing from the tariffs the court threw out.
Josh Lipsky of the Atlantic Council put it plainly to AFP: this makes it far more likely the duties last the full term. He is right, and European business should plan on that basis rather than on the assumption that the next court ruling brings relief.
Brussels priced its own paper at ten per cent
Here is the part Europe should find uncomfortable. The EU does have a forced-labour regulation. It was adopted in 2024. It applies from 14 December 2027. Until then it is a document, not an enforcement regime.
Maroš Šefčovič said he was very surprised by the American findings and pointed out that European labour standards are among the highest in the world. Both things can be true. High standards for what happens inside Europe are not the same as a functioning ban on what comes into it, and the American finding was about the second. Brussels got the lower rate for having promised. It did not get the lower rate for having delivered.
That should sharpen the argument the Commission is already making in Washington, where it is asking for €150bn of exports to be exempted from the 15 per cent line agreed at Turnberry. It also weakens the case for reaching, again, for the anti-coercion instrument. This is not coercion. It is a finding Europe cannot easily rebut for another seventeen months.
The verdict
The lesson of the past eighteen months is that Europe keeps negotiating rates while Washington quietly rebuilds authorities. The Turnberry ratification was sold as stability. It delivered a number, not a foundation, and the foundation is what just moved.
The second investigation, into manufacturing overcapacity, covers sixteen partners including the EU, Switzerland and Norway. It has not reported yet. Anyone treating Friday as the end of this should look at that calendar again.
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