The Trump administration has moved from threatening a new round of tariffs to imposing one, Al Jazeera reports. We reported earlier this week that the measures were being prepared as a deadline approached; that deadline has now arrived.

What has been imposed

The new tariffs are broad in reach if moderate in rate.

According to Al Jazeera, the United States is imposing tariffs of 10 to 12.5 percent on imports from 60 countries, which together account for about 99 percent of what the US imports. They take effect at 12:01 a.m. on Friday, as the temporary 10 percent worldwide tariffs that had been in place expire. In effect, one broad, temporary regime is being replaced by a wider, more permanent-looking one.

The stated justification is specific. Al Jazeera reports that the tariffs target countries deemed to have inadequately enforced bans on goods made with forced labor. The US trade representative, Jamieson Greer, framed it that way: "The United States has had a forced labor import ban for nearly a century, and rigorously enforces it," he said, according to Al Jazeera. "It's well past time for our trading partners to do the same."

Why the legal basis matters

The most consequential detail is not the rate but the law being used, because that is what determines whether these tariffs survive.

Al Jazeera reports that the administration is now using Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, a provision that lets the president impose tariffs against countries judged to engage in "unjustifiable," "unreasonable" or "discriminatory" trade practices. This matters because of what came before: as we have reported, the Supreme Court struck down Trump's earlier use of emergency powers to impose sweeping global tariffs, forcing the administration onto other legal footing. Al Jazeera notes that Section 301 tariffs are expected to survive legal challenge, as similar measures did during Trump's first term.

So this is not just another tariff announcement. It is the administration reconstructing its tariff program on a legal foundation it believes the courts will uphold, after a previous foundation was knocked away. That is what makes these measures potentially more durable than the ones they replace.

The forced-labor framing

The justification deserves a clear-eyed look, because it is both a genuine issue and a chosen frame.

Forced labor in global supply chains is a real and widely condemned problem, and the US has long had a legal ban on importing goods made with it. Presenting tariffs as enforcement of that ban gives them a moral and legal rationale distinct from pure protectionism. At the same time, applying that rationale to countries covering 99 percent of US imports is a very wide net, and critics are likely to argue that the forced-labor justification is being used to enable broad tariffs that also serve other economic and political aims. We report the administration's stated reason as its stated reason; whether it is the whole reason is exactly what the debate will turn on.

What comes next

This may not be the end of the expansion.

Al Jazeera reports that further Section 301 tariffs are anticipated, with an ongoing investigation into whether 16 countries, accounting for about 70 percent of US imports, have overproduced goods. That signals more tariffs, on additional grounds, may follow. For a global audience, the significance is that the US is systematically rebuilding a broad tariff wall using a legal tool designed to withstand challenge, and that the cost, borne substantially by importers and consumers as we have reported, will now be a more permanent feature of trade with the United States rather than a temporary measure awaiting a court's verdict.