The New Tariff Layer

Since the Supreme Court struck down Trump's sweeping country-by-country tariffs in February — ruling the emergency powers law invoked didn't authorize them — the administration has been rebuilding its tariff architecture using different legal tools. The latest: Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974.

On June 2, the White House proposed hitting 60 economies with import taxes of at least 10%, citing a Section 301 investigation into trading partners that allegedly fail to crack down on goods produced by forced labor, according to CBS News.

Most of those 60 countries are facing a 12.5% proposed rate — including China, Japan, South Korea, and Brazil. A lower 10% rate applies to 16 partners — including the UK, Canada, Mexico, the EU, Taiwan, and Argentina — that Greer's office says are at least making some effort on forced labor enforcement.

Some goods are exempt: beef, tomatoes, and coffee, per CBS News. There's also a proposed rule letting certain textiles enter at reduced rates if countries import an equal volume of American textiles.

'A Deal's a Deal' — With Conditions

The announcement rattled trading partners who thought they'd already negotiated their way out of tariff exposure. The EU in particular has a cap agreement hammered out at Turnberry, Scotland, nearly a year ago.

So reporters asked the obvious question: does the new forced-labor tariff blow up that deal?

Greer's answer, delivered Thursday at the OECD in Paris, was reassuring — up to a point.

"We understand that a deal is a deal," Greer said, per The Business Times. "We're going to take into account the Turnberry deal, of course."

But then came the qualifier that every EU trade minister needs to read carefully: "provided that the European Union delivers on the Turnberry deal."

This is a conditional, not a blank check. The U.S. is saying it will honor the cap — but only if the EU fulfills its side of the existing agreement. What exactly that means in practice, Greer didn't spell out in detail.

Japan gets the same treatment. Greer said the administration wants to make sure countries are "responding to the types of unfair practices that were identified" in U.S. investigations, according to The Business Times.

China Gets Advanced Notice

China was given advanced notice before the forced-labor tariff announcement, according to Greer, speaking to reporters Thursday.

"We're being very responsible about the relationship," Greer said of talks with Beijing, per The Business Times. "We have to protect our economy, we have to have a certain level of tariffs — and our expectation is that as we go through these Section [301 processes], consultations will continue."

Advanced notice and continuing consultations represent a different posture than the all-out trade war framing that dominated coverage a year ago.

Another Wave Is Coming

Greer confirmed Thursday that a separate Section 301 investigation into industrial overcapacity — think Chinese steel, aluminum, solar panels, and EVs flooding global markets at subsidized prices — is "a matter of weeks" from completion.

"It's on a little bit of a different time schedule given its complexity," Greer said, according to The Business Times.

That probe could trigger another round of tariffs on top of what was just announced. Industrial overcapacity isn't a niche issue — it's one of the core reasons American manufacturers have been getting undercut for decades.

The Tariff Architecture Shift

Most outlets are framing this as "tariff chaos" or a contradiction — how can you claim to honor bilateral deals while slapping new tariffs on those same partners?

The answer is straightforward: the forced-labor tariffs are built on a different legal authority (Section 301) and tied to a different set of trade practices than the bilateral rate caps negotiated at Turnberry or elsewhere. They're not automatically in conflict.

The central question is what specific deliverables the EU owes under Turnberry, and whether the U.S. actually has leverage to enforce them. Greer saying "provided the EU delivers" carries significant weight. What happens if the EU claims it has delivered and the U.S. disagrees remains unclear.

Also important: these tariffs are proposed. They still need to go through a public comment process before taking effect, per CBS News. They are not law yet.

What It Means for Consumers

If you buy anything imported — electronics, clothing, appliances — a baseline 10-12.5% additional cost layer is being proposed across most of the world's major economies. That cost doesn't stay at the port. It moves downstream to retail shelves.

The forced-labor framing is real — the U.S. has prohibited forced-labor goods for nearly a century — but the practical effect is another broad tariff increase, regardless of the legal justification used to implement it.

With an industrial overcapacity investigation nearing completion, this isn't over. The tariff architecture Trump is rebuilding after the Supreme Court rejection is coming back — one Section 301 probe at a time.