U.S. Government Imposes Up to 12.5% Tariffs on South Korea and Japan Over Alleged Forced Labor Concerns
Here is the latest twist in the Trump administration’s tariff war:
This file photo, released by Reuters, shows U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer arriving for U.S. President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress at the U.S. Capitol in Washington on Feb. 24, 2026.
U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration on Thursday announced its final decision to impose up to 12.5 percent tariffs on South Korea, Japan and other trading partners over forced labor concerns.
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) unveiled the new tariffs ranging from 10 percent to 12.5 percent on dozens of countries after conducting investigations into 60 economies under Section 301 of the 1974 Trade Act to determine whether they had taken sufficient steps to ban imports made with forced labor.
The announcement came as the administration’s temporary 10-percent global tariffs were set to expire on Friday. The across-the-board duties were rolled out after the Supreme Court struck down the Trump administration’s country-specific “reciprocal tariffs” in February.
You can read more at the link, but apparently this forced labor angle is a way to get around the ban the Supreme Court issued on the Trump administration’s sweeping global tariffs earlier this year.
