US Targets EU, UK, China And 57 Others With Forced Labour Tariffs

WASHINGTON, June 3 (dpa) -- The US has threatened 60 economies - including the EU, UK and China - with new tariffs for failing to prevent the import of products thought to have been made with forced labour or for insufficiently enforcing existing import bans.

The European Union, the United Kingdom and Switzerland, as well as countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America, and also Canada and China, face additional tariffs of between 10% and 12.5%, the Office of the US Trade Representative said late on Tuesday.

"The failure of our most important trading partners to address the importation of goods made with forced labor is unacceptable. This creates a dynamic where American workers are forced to compete globally on an unlevel playing field," US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said in the statement.

"We will no longer tolerate this disparity."

The US trade representative is basing the move on an investigation that began on March 12, according to the statement. 

The move was linked to "the failure to impose and effectively enforce a prohibition on the importation of goods produced with forced labor." 

The tariffs are not set to take effect immediately. Instead, objections may first be submitted until July 6, with a hearing scheduled for July 7.

China's Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning criticized the move, saying tariff and trade wars are not in either side's interest. "There is no so-called forced labour in China," she added.

In the legal battle over his controversial tariff policy, US President Donald Trump secured a partial victory in mid-May. An appeals court temporarily suspended a lower court ruling that had declared Trump's temporary tariffs on imports from around the world unlawful. Importers must for now continue to pay a 10% levy.

--NNN-dpa