so-called Liberation Day tariffs<\/a> were illegal. The new levies replace the temporary Section 122 tariff imposed after that court decision, due to expire on 24 July.<\/p>\nUS Trade Representative (USTR) Jamieson Greer claimed the new tariffs were designed to combat imports made with forced labour – a claim previously rejected by New Zealand.<\/p>\n
The new tariffs are set to come into effect from just after 4.01pm (New Zealand time) on Friday.<\/p>\n
The US government’s notice said New Zealand’s tariff rate was based on USTR’s findings from its investigation into New Zealand.<\/p>\n
Trade policy consultant Charles Finny said the decision was not a surprise.<\/p>\n
“This is exactly as we were anticipating,” he said.<\/p>\n
Finny said there was still uncertainty over how long the tariffs would remain in place, particularly if they were challenged in US courts.<\/p>\n
“I think exporters should be planning on these 12 or 12.5 percent tariffs applying for many months,” he said.<\/p>\n
In a statement, Greer said: “President Trump recognises that decades of moral suasion have not eradicated forced labour from global supply chains.<\/p>\n
“The United States has had a forced labour import ban for nearly a century, and rigourously enforces it; it’s well past time for our trading partners to do the same.”<\/p>\n
The Trump administration agreed to impose lower 10 percent tariffs on countries it claimed had committed to impose a forced labour import prohibition. They included Argentina, Bangladesh, Canada, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mexico, Pakistan and the UK.<\/p>\n
Finny said the United States remained a good market for many exporters, but the higher tariff would make conditions tougher for some.<\/p>\n
“For some exporters, it will be even tougher now with a 12.5 percent tariff, and they will be looking for new markets,” he said.<\/p>\n
He said New Zealand had options because about 80 percent of exports were covered by free trade agreements.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The US is set to impose new tariffs ranging from 10 to 12.5 percent on 60 economies, including…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":536222,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-541054","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541054","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=541054"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541054\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/536222"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=541054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=541054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=541054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}