The Trump administration plans to impose new tariffs on dozens of trading partners, including Canada, over allegations the countries are allowing goods produced by forced labour into their supply chains.

It’s the White House’s latest step to replace the broad-based tariffs that were struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court in February.

The proposed new tariffs were announced by U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer late Tuesday night, not long after he wrapped up an afternoon meeting with Canada-U.S. Trade Minister Dominic LeBlanc in Washington.

“The failure of our most important trading partners to address the importation of goods made with forced labour is unacceptable,” Greer said in a news release.

Greer is proposing a 10 per cent tariff on exports from Canada. They would apply only on goods that don’t comply with the rules of origin in the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA). That means nearly 90 per cent of Canada’s exports to the U.S. would be exempt from the tariff.

The wording of the official announcement from Greer’s office describes it as an additional tariff, suggesting it would stack on top of an existing tariff of 10 per cent on Canadian exports that don’t comply with CUSMA. That tariff is due to expire on July 24.

WATCH | Carney downplays impact of new ‘forced labour’ tariff:

Carney says CUSMA spares most Canadian trade from proposed U.S. forced labour tariff

The U.S. is proposing a new 10 to 12.5 per cent tariff on dozens of countries, including Canada, over allegations of failing to enforce a ban on forced labour. Prime Minister Mark Carney said the motivation behind the tariff ‘is something that we share,’ and it ‘will not have an impact’ on the ‘vast majority’ of Canadian trade because of a CUSMA carveout.

Under U.S. law, the president has the power to impose tariffs on countries if an investigation deems their trade practices to be unfair and harmful to U.S. commerce.

The office of the U.S. trade representative launched investigations in March into whether 59 countries plus the European Union are effectively banning the importation of goods produced with forced labour.

Tuesday night’s news release declared that all 60 failed to meet the bar, prompting skeptics to question the fairness of the U.S. investigation into forced labour.

‘It’s actually preposterous’

David Henig, a policy director at the European Centre for International Political Economy, a think tank in Brussels, says it’s implausible that all these U.S. trading partners are equally guilty.

“It’s actually preposterous,” Henig told CBC News, adding that the evidence presented by the U.S. doesn’t justify the tariffs being proposed. “The logic is so contorted.”

The U.S. is using the forced labour issue as “an excuse to impose the tariffs that they wanted to do anyway,” Henig said.

Aside from Canada, 15 other U.S. trading partners would also face a 10 per cent tariff over the forced labour investigation. They include the European Union, the U.K., Argentina, El Salvador, Bangladesh and Pakistan.

The remaining 44 countries — including Japan, Singapore, India, South Korea and Vietnam — face a tariff of 12.5 per cent.

The Trump administration cannot impose the tariffs immediately. It must go through a period of public comment and review, starting with hearings in July.

The 92-page investigation report by the U.S. trade representative (USTR) includes a section justifying its claim that Canada is “failing to effectively enforce” its own ban on forced-labour imports, which took effect in 2020.

“The number of enforcement actions Canada has taken to prevent the entry of forced labor goods is minimal.”

2 shipments denied entry to Canada in 6 years

The Canada Border Services Agency “does not appear to publish official statistics or other information regarding its enforcement efforts,” the USTR says.

“The little information that is available regarding enforcement statistics suggests that, between 2020 and 2026, Canadian authorities intercepted just 50 shipments for suspicion of forced labor, with only two shipments ultimately prohibited entry,” it says.

The report contrasts the Canadian figures with U.S. Customs and Border Protection denying entry to more than 6,300 shipments in 2024 alone for violating the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which targets goods produced by ethnic-minority populations in the Xinjiang region of China.

The USTR also cites this 2021 report by Above Ground, a Canadian human rights advocacy group, as evidence of “a high risk that Canadian companies are profiting from the importation of forced labor goods, such as seafood, coffee, cocoa, and cotton.”  

However, in a submission to the USTR in April, Above Ground urged the U.S. not to impose tariffs on Canada over the forced labour issue. 

Human rights NGO rejects tariff plan

Karen Hamilton, the group’s director, believes the Trump administration’s move is not truly driven by concern over forced labour but rather by its desire to circumvent the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that struck down the blanket global tariffs.

“In the current context, there’s very little appetite in Canada to be told what to do by this current U.S. administration, especially on issues of human rights and labour rights,” Hamilton told CBC News on Wednesday. 

She says her organization stands by its findings that the Canadian government is not doing enough about forced labour, but objects to the way the U.S. used its research to justify hitting Canada with more tariffs.

“We are concerned that this will undermine our efforts to achieve real change and actually have measures that do combat forced labour and that do uplift the rights of workers,” Hamilton said.

While the Trump administration’s move to impose tariffs on Canada over the forced labour issue is new, U.S. complaints about the practice long predate his return to the White House, and the Republican president is not the only one who’s been complaining.

• During the negotiations that led to the signing of CUSMA in 2018, the U.S. pushed Canada and Mexico to agree to pass their own laws banning the import of goods made by forced labour. 
• In 2022, a Liberal MP predicted the U.S. could retaliate against Canada for failing to halt the import of goods made with forced labour.
• In 2024, a Democratic senator who helped create U.S. law on forced labour told CBC News that he was concerned that Canada’s lack of enforcement was creating a back door for forced-labour products to enter the U.S.