US hits South Africa with new 12.5% tariffs
South Africa has been hit with a new 12.5% trade tariff as part of the Trump administration's latest measures linked to what it describes as forced labour concerns.
The country is among 60 economies affected by the new measures.
The United States says the tariffs are designed to encourage stronger import bans on goods produced with forced labour and to withstand future legal challenges.
The levies, which came into effect on Friday, range from 10 per cent to 12.5 per cent and impact major economies including China, India and the European Union.
"The United States has had a forced labour import ban for nearly a century, and rigorously enforces it; it's well past time for our trading partners to do the same," said US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer.
He earlier added that the targeted economies represent the majority of US trade.
The Trump administration has moved swiftly to rebuild the president's tariff wall after the Supreme Court struck down a host of his duties in February -- dealing a blow to his ability to unleash steep levies at will.
After the setback, Trump tapped different authorities to reimpose a 10-per cent tariff on imports. But this only lasted 150 days and expired on Friday.
The volley of new duties, initially proposed in June, now takes its place.
The measures were planned after a months-long investigation and are considered more resistant to legal challenges than earlier moves.
Under Thursday's announcement, economies that have implemented a forced labour import prohibition or committed to do so are hit with the lower 10-per cent rate.
They include Canada, the European Union, India and the United Kingdom.
South Africa is among the countries facing the higher 12.5 per cent tariff, alongside China, Japan, South Korea and dozens of others.
However, the European Union, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and Switzerland will receive some relief under trade agreements previously reached with the United States.
The new levies received swift condemnation from target countries, with Japan saying it "regrets" the duties and Australia's trade minister calling them "unjustified."
Goods already facing sector-specific tariffs -- such as steel and aluminium -- will not be affected.
Certain energy products and fertilisers will also be exempt, alongside products covered by the US-Mexico-Canada free trade pact, a US official told reporters.
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Maintaining leverage
Washington is separately investigating 16 economies over excess industrial capacity, in probes that could lead to additional duties.
These could eventually result in varying rates among countries, experts warn.
The Trump administration's move to impose a baseline tariff while sustaining the threat of further duties maintains leverage over its trading partners, trade lawyer Greta Peisch told AFP.
It also creates an incentive for countries to comply with trade pacts that they earlier struck, she added.
In spending time on investigations, officials want their incoming tariffs to be robust if there are court challenges, said Peisch, a former general counsel for the Office of the US Trade Representative, who is now a partner at Wiley Rein.
"This makes it much more likely that they stay for the duration of Trump's term," signalling a "much more protectionist world's largest economy" moving forward, Josh Lipsky of the Atlantic Council told AFP.
Resurrecting tariffs boosts government revenues, too, he added.
'Fragile' deals
The Trump administration has been hunting for options that would allow it to aggressively deploy tariffs, said former US trade official Ryan Majerus.
In the longer term, Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, which Greer tapped to impose the latest duties, provides "more flexibility than people realise," Majerus said.
Once in place, officials can modify them based on new developments, added Majerus, a partner at King & Spalding.
The latest salvo comes shortly after a 25-percent tariff took effect on various Brazilian goods, as Washington accused the Latin American giant of unfair trade practices.
This week, Trump also ordered new 50-per-cent tariffs on many Canadian products, citing Ottawa's "discriminatory treatment" of American alcohol, automobile and dairy products.
The Canadian tariffs taking effect in a month rely on an untested legal provision, showing that Trump has other tools to swiftly wield, said Lipsky.
This signals that US tariff deals "are still fragile," he said.
Nonetheless, the European Union, which has signed a trade pact, expects that Washington "will honour the commitments that are spelt out under the EU-US Joint Statement."
