The Trump administration announced Wednesday that it would launch a wave of tariff-related investigations into more than a dozen US trading partners, the next step in President Donald Trump’s widening global trade wars.
In a process that could lead to a new round of tariffs in the coming days, the Office of the US Trade Representative is opening formal investigations into major trading partners that include the European Union, Mexico and China – each one of the top five sources of US imports.
Singapore, Switzerland, Norway, Indonesia, Malaysia, Cambodia, Thailand, Korea, Vietnam, Taiwan, Bangladesh, Japan and India will be targeted for investigation under a trade law known as Section 301.
“These investigations focus on economies where we have evidence to demonstrate structural excess capacity and production, such as large, persistent trade surpluses or unused or underutilized capacity in various manufacturing sectors,” US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer told reporters on Wednesday.
“We expect this investigation will uncover a variety of unfair business practices,” Greer added.
In a second announcement later this week, Greer said the US would also move to launch an investigation into imports of goods made with “forced labour”.
Under Section 307 of the Tariff Act of 1930, goods produced using forced labor are already prohibited from being imported into the US. The ban was strengthened in 2021 when Congress passed the Uighur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which specifically targets goods made in China’s Xinjiang region.
Currently, the United States has a blanket 10% tariff on all trading partners after the Supreme Court struck down President Donald Trump’s country-specific tariffs in late February.
The court found that Trump exceeded his presidential authority when he used the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to impose rapid tariffs on several countries.
The current tariff is enforced under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974, which allows the tariff to remain in place for 150 days, but not more.
Greer said his goal is to wrap up the investigations announced Wednesday by the end of the 150-day period.
“The president has potential options,” Greer said. “We are very focused on doing Section 301 investigations and bringing them to a conclusion as quickly as possible,” he said.
“I want to aim to reach a conclusion before the expiry of (Section) 122 (tariff),” he said.
Trade partners named in Wednesday’s new order are expected to strongly protest the Trump administration’s latest moves. Especially after many of them have reached framework business deals over the course of the past year.
For example, Mexico is a party to the United States-Mexico-Canada trade agreement, which Trump negotiated during his first term in office. It was not immediately clear how Wednesday’s announcement would affect that deal.
The European Union, America’s largest trading partner, reached an agreement announced in Scotland last summer.
But the future of that deal is currently in doubt after the EU paused the final ratification process in the wake of the Supreme Court decision and several other tense issues between the two allies.
A top member of the European Parliament said the Supreme Court ruling – paired with Trump’s new 10% duties – had created “pure tariff confusion”.
“Nobody can make sense anymore – just open questions and growing uncertainty for the EU and other US trading partners,” Bernd Lang, head of the European Parliament’s trade committee, posted on X on February 22.
Switzerland’s opening of the investigation comes under scrutiny.
In January, Trump told attendees at the World Economic Forum in the Swiss mountain village of Davos that he imposed substantially higher tariffs on the country than on its neighbors out of personal resentment.
“I guess, the prime minister, I don’t think the president … called, lady. And he was very repetitive,” Trump said in the speech.
Describing then-president Karin Keller-Sutter of Switzerland, Trump said, “We’re a small country, and she said the same thing over and over.”
“And she rubbed me the wrong way, I’ll be honest with you,” Trump explained. After the shutdown, they decided the duty in Switzerland would be 39%, he said.
“Then all hell really broke loose, and I was visited by everyone,” he said, “Rolex came to see me.”
After those visits, the tariff rate was reduced to 15%.
