NationThailand-July 24
The United States will impose a 12.5% tariff on goods from Thailand from Friday as part of a new system of duties targeting 60 trading partners over what Washington describes as inadequate enforcement against forced labor. The tariffs, set at either 10% or 12.5%, will take effect at 12.01am US Eastern time on July 24, or 11.01am in Thailand. They will replace a temporary 10% global levy that expires at the same time.
The new duties will cover 99.4% of US imports, although oil and gas, fertilizer, certain food products and several other categories will be exempt. Goods already covered by Section 232 national-security tariffs, including automobiles, steel, aluminum and copper, will also be exclude. Seventeen countries will face the lower 10% duty: Argentina, Bangladesh, Britain, Cambodia, Canada, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, India, Indonesia, Jordan, Malaysia, Mexico, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Trinidad and Tobago. The European Union, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and Switzerland will face additional duties that bring their combined tariff rates, including existing most-favored-nation tariffs, to either 10% or 12.5%. Washington said the lower rate would apply to countries judged to have adequate laws prohibiting forced labor, while the higher rate would cover those whose restrictions were considered insufficient. US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said the United States had enforced a ban on imports made with forced labor for nearly a century and that its trading partners should adopt similarly rigorous measures. The administration argues that countries failing to enforce such bans gain an unfair trade advantage over the United States, where imports suspected of being produced through forced labor face tighter restrictions. A senior administration official rejected suggestions that the forced-labor duties were simply a replacement for the expiring tariff, despite their similar rates, timing and broad coverage. The official said the action resulted from an investigation into whether trading partners’ labor policies placed US businesses at a disadvantage. Read more at:
