Trump’s next phase of global tariffs goes into effect, affecting countries that provide 99.4% of US imports
Tariff rates of up to 12.5% replaced the US’s expiring global tariffs at midnight.
Ben Werschkul· Washington Correspondent
Updated Fri, 24 July 2026 at 6:30 pm GMT+5:30
5 min read
The Trump administration imposed the replacement for 10% “global tariffs” that expired at midnight on Thursday. The suite of new duties, which Trump’s team hopes will be permanent, went immediately into effect at 12:01 a.m. ET on Friday, levying rates of 10% to 12.5% on America’s top trading partners.
Trump’s trade office said in a fact sheet on Thursday that this order will apply to 60 of the top US trade partners and cover 99.4% of US imports
These duties will be imposed under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 and are coming into force at the end of a months-long investigation focused on the issue of forced labor
A senior administration official previewed this week’s action on Thursday by calling it the “most sweeping international labor rights action the United States has ever taken,” while downplaying the notion that this was done simply to replace the expiring tariffs
“We are implementing this at this moment really to avoid complexity,” the official said, noting that steady tariff rates would be better for businesses
The new tariffs impose a 12.5% rate on trading partners from China to Australia to Egypt, according to the formal Federal Register Notice. Other economies, including the European Union, Indonesia, and Mexico, received a 10% rate
The new tariffs also provide a series of exemptions for goods in transit, as well as for goods subject to other trade agreements and tariff authorities
Goods already subject to separate national security tariffs — notably steel and aluminum — will not see a doubling up of tariffs, and goods exempted from duties by the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) will remain largely tariff-free
Specific goods were also exempted under these new duties to avoid economic turmoil in the US. These include big-ticket items like oil and natural gas as well as smaller-ticket items that aren’t produced in the US, like cork from Europe. The formal notice includes hundreds of pages of exemptions
Thursday’s announcement is the latest twist in the president’s attempt to reimpose tariffs after the Supreme Court struck down his blanket tariffs in February. It comes during a busy week in trade policy that has also seen the president threaten 50% tariff on a variety of Canadian goods and 100% tariffs on generic drugs beginning in 2028
‘Our policy remains the same’
Earlier this week, US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer told lawmakers during a congressional hearing that Trump still believes trade issues constitute a national emergency for the US
