{"id":819567,"date":"2026-07-23T22:26:13","date_gmt":"2026-07-23T22:26:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/819567\/"},"modified":"2026-07-23T22:26:13","modified_gmt":"2026-07-23T22:26:13","slug":"trump-tariffs-on-australia-hiked-to-12-5-per-cent-over-forced-labour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/819567\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump tariffs on Australia hiked to 12.5 per cent over \u2018forced labour\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Michael<\/p>\n

Updated July 24, 2026 \u2014 8:17am,first published 7:24am<\/p>\n

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Washington: The United States will increase tariffs on Australian products to 12.5 per cent under the guise of human rights, after the US trade office determined Australia and 59 other countries were not doing enough to eliminate forced labour.<\/p>\n

The decision means tariffs on Australian goods will rise from 10 per cent, which was the rate set under a temporary measure after the Supreme Court ruled President Donald Trump\u2019s so-called \u201creciprocal tariffs\u201d were unlawful<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"PresidentPresident Donald Trump at the White House on Thursday.AP Photo\/Alex Brandon<\/p>\n

The Australian government made a submission<\/a> arguing that Australia maintained a robust legal architecture against modern slavery, albeit in a different form to the US. It also pointed out that Australia and the US have a 20-year-old free trade agreement.<\/p>\n

But in a notice issued on Thursday (Washington time), the US trade office said it had decided to impose the tariffs on Australia anyway, based on public comments, testimony, the advice of its committee and \u201cin accordance with the specific direction of the President\u201d.<\/p>\n

The new tariffs are due to commence at midnight on Friday (Washington time), or 2pm Friday AEST.<\/p>\n

Related Article\"Donna<\/a><\/p>\n

Australia\u2019s Trade Minister Don Farrell said on Friday morning that the tariffs were \u201cunjustified, inconsistent with our free trade agreement and should be removed\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cAustralia\u2019s measures to combat forced labour and modern slavery are among the strongest in the world, and we are recognised globally, including in the US, for our leadership,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Dozens of other countries were hit with the new forced labour tariffs, though many escaped with a lower 10 per cent rate, including Argentina, Canada, India, Indonesia, Malaysia and the United Kingdom.<\/p>\n

In a statement, US Trade Ambassador Jamieson Greer said Trump recognised that decades of moral urging had not eradicated forced labour from global supply chains. But he was encouraged that some countries had moved quickly to adopt a US-style ban.<\/p>\n

Related Article\"US<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThe United States has had a forced labour import ban for nearly a century, and rigorously enforces it; it\u2019s well past time for our trading partners to do the same,\u201d Greer said.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday\u2019s action will begin to correct what is both a human rights abuse and distortive trade practice to improve the welfare of workers everywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n

The new tariffs applied to the US\u2019 top 60 trading partners and covered 99.4 per cent of US imports, the trade office said. Thursday\u2019s order contained an annex with a number of product exemptions.<\/p>\n

Proposed early last month<\/a>, the forced labour tariffs are widely viewed as a tool to sidestep the Supreme Court decision, which torpedoed Trump\u2019s signature economic and revenue raising policy.<\/p>\n

Related Article\"US<\/a><\/p>\n

They are imposed using Section 301 of the Trade Act, which allows the US to combat unfair trade practices by other countries, rather than the sweeping presidential emergency powers Trump used for his earlier \u201creciprocal\u201d tariffs.<\/p>\n

The Albanese government last week announced tougher measures as part of its anti-modern slavery regime<\/a> that made large Australian companies liable for criminal prosecution if they failed to prevent forced labour in their global supply chains.<\/p>\n

The government did not explicitly link the move to the Trump administration\u2019s position. But the announcement appears not to have made a difference.<\/p>\n

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\"MichaelMichael Koziol<\/a> is the North America correspondent for The Age and Sydney Morning Herald. He is a former Sydney editor, Sun-Herald deputy editor and a federal political reporter in Canberra.Connect via X<\/a> or email<\/a>.From our partners<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Updated July 24, 2026 \u2014 8:17am,first published 7:24am Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":819568,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-819567","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/819567","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=819567"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/819567\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/819568"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=819567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=819567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=819567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}