The Trump administration announced Wednesday that it will launch a wave of tariff-related investigations into more than a dozen U.S. trade partners, the next phase in President Donald Trump’s sweeping global trade wars.<\/p>\n
In a process that is likely to result in a fresh round of tariffs in the near future, the Office of U.S. Trade Representative is opening the formal probes into major trade partners that include the European Union, Mexico and China \u2014 each of which ranks among the top five sources of U.S. imports. <\/p>\n
Singapore, Switzerland, Norway, Indonesia, Malaysia, Cambodia, Thailand, Korea, Vietnam, Taiwan, Bangladesh, Japan and India will also be the targets of investigations under the trade statute known as Section 301.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese investigations will focus on economies that we have evidence appear to exhibit structural excess capacity and production in various manufacturing sectors, such as through larger, persistent trade surpluses or underutilized or unused capacity,\u201d said U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer on a call with reporters Wednesday.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe expect that this investigation will uncover a variety of unfair trading practices,\u201d Greer added. <\/p>\n
Greer said the U.S. would also be moving to launch an investigation related to the import of goods made with \u201cforced labor,\u201d in a second announcement set for later this week.<\/p>\n
Goods produced using forced labor are already banned from U.S. import under Section 307 of the Tariff Act of 1930. This ban was strengthened in 2021 when Congress passed the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which specifically targeted goods made in the Xinjiang region of China.<\/p>\n
Currently, the United States has a blanket 10% tariff in place<\/a> on all trading partners that was imposed after the Supreme Court struck down many of President Donald Trump\u2019s country-specific tariffs in late February. <\/p>\n The court found that Trump exceeded his presidential authority<\/a> when he used the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to impose rapid-fire tariffs on scores of countries. <\/p>\n The current tariff was enacted under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974<\/a>, which permits the tariff to remain in place for 150 days, but not longer. <\/p>\n Greer said his goal was for the investigations announced Wednesday to be wrapped up by the time that 150-day period ends.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are potential options for the president,\u201d said Greer. \u201cWe are much more focused on doing the Section 301 investigations, and bringing them to conclusion as quickly as possible,” he said. <\/p>\n \u201cI would like to target them coming to conclusion before the [Section] 122 [tariff] expires,” he added.<\/p>\n Trading partners named in the new action Wednesday are expected to fiercely protest the latest moves by the Trump administration. Especially after many of them have reached framework trade deals over the course of the past year. <\/p>\n Mexico, for example, is a party to the United States-Mexico-Canada trade pact, which Trump negotiated during his first term<\/a> in office. It was not immediately clear how Wednesday\u2019s announcement would impact that agreement. <\/p>\n The European Union, America’s largest trade partner, reached a deal last summer<\/a> that was announced in Scotland. <\/p>\n But the future of that agreement is currently in doubt, after the E.U. hit pause<\/a> on the final ratification process in the wake of the Supreme Court decision and several other tense issues between the two allies. <\/p>\n One top member of the European Parliament said the Supreme Court ruling \u2014 paired with Trump\u2019s new 10% duties \u2014 had created \u201cpure tariff chaos.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cNo one can make sense of it anymore \u2014 only open questions and growing uncertainty for the EU and other US trading partners,\u201d wrote Bernd Lange, head of the European Parliament\u2019s trade committee, in a Feb. 22 post on X<\/a>.<\/p>\n The opening of an investigation into Switzerland will also likely draw scrutiny. <\/p>\n In January, at the World Economic Forum in the Swiss mountain village of Davos, Trump told attendees that he had imposed significantly higher tariffs on the country than its neighbors because of a personal grievance. <\/p>\n “The, I guess, prime minister, I don’t think president … called, a woman. And she was very repetitive,” Trump said in a speech.<\/p>\n Describing Switzerland’s then-president Karin Keller-Sutter, Trump said she, “kept saying the same thing over and over, ‘we are a small country.'” <\/p>\n “And she just rubbed me the wrong way, I’ll be honest with you,” Trump recounted. He said that after hanging up, he decided the tariff on Switzerland would be 39%. <\/p>\n “Then all hell really broke out, and I was paid visits by everybody,” he said, “Rolex came to see me.” <\/p>\n Following those visits, the tariff rate was lowered to 15%.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n![\"President](\"https:\/\/media-cldnry.s-nbcnews.com\/image\/upload\/t_fit-760w,f_auto,q_auto:best\/rockcms\/2025-07\/250728-donald-trump-ursula-von-der-leyen-se-458p-e99056.jpg\")
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