NEW YORK — The Trump administration has imposed double-digit tariffs on more than 60 countries, using a legal justification that allows the president to impose import taxes and other sanctions against countries that engage in “unjustifiable,” “unreasonable” or “discriminatory” trade practices.

The new tariffs announced in recent days come into effect just as temporary 10% tariffs expired globally, and critics say they are less about cracking down on forced labor than a way to replace those tariffs. The expired tariffs were themselves a temporary replacement for global tariffs that the Supreme Court struck down in February.

The tariffs were applied to countries that the United States says do not have or do not effectively enforce a ban on imports of forced labor. The affected countries, which account for 99% of US imports, were quick to protest, calling the Trump administration’s claims baseless and arbitrary, as nations with very different records on forced labor received the same tariff level. The United States spent four months investigating but gave few details about how it arrived at the tariff rates, which are either 10% or 12.5%.

The tariffs were applied under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 to countries that the United States determined had not “imposed and effectively enforced a prohibition on the importation of goods produced with forced labor.”

During President Donald Trump’s first term, he cited Section 301 to impose sweeping tariffs on Chinese imports amid a dispute over nudge tactics Beijing was using to challenge U.S. technological dominance. The United States is also using 301 powers to counter what it calls unfair Chinese practices in the shipbuilding industry.

“301s allow for a permanent tariff without going to Congress to resolve the dispute,” said Barry Appleton, a law professor and co-director of the Center for International Law at New York Law School. “That’s what this is all about. The president doesn’t want to knock on the front door of Congress, so he’s trying to get in through every side door and every open window.”

The U.S. Trade Representative’s (USTR) office said it consulted with all 60 economies under investigation and held two rounds of public hearings, obtained more than 2,100 public comments and had “engagement” with its trading partners on what they were doing to combat forced labor bans.

He did not detail his conversations with countries, saying they were confidential. Experts say it’s fairly easy to investigate whether a country has a ban or not, but it’s difficult to determine the government’s exact justification for each country not enforcing import bans.

“There’s not a lot of hard evidence,” said Scott Lincicome, vice president of general economics and trade policy at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank. “It is quite ridiculous to think that a country like those in Europe, Norway or Switzerland are not doing enough to control forced labor.”

And even if countries enact and enforce the forced labor import bans that the United States wants, they would still have to demonstrate that they are enforcing them to Washington’s satisfaction before the tariffs are removed, said lawyer Patrick Childress, a partner at Holland. & Knight and former US trade official.

“This suggests there will be no near-term path to nationwide relief from the new Section 301 tariffs,” he said.

Many countries have rejected the Trump administration’s conclusions.

Brazil, which faces a 12.5% ​​tariff for forced labor, called the US measure “arbitrary and unjustified.” The United States “chose to manipulate an issue of great importance to human rights and workers’ struggles around the world to accuse 59 countries and the European Union of unfair practices,” it said in a statement.

Australia also questioned the justification for its 12.5% ​​tariff.

“We believe that, of all the countries in the world, Australia takes seriously the issue of slavery, modern slavery, and will continue to do so,” Trade Minister Don Farrell told reporters in Adelaide.

The exclusions have rankled some industries. The National Council of Textile Organizations (NCTO), which describes itself as the voice of the American textile industry, protested a mechanism that exempts textile and apparel imports from Bangladesh, Cambodia, Indonesia and Malaysia from Section 301 tariffs based on imports of American cotton and textiles from those countries.

“No other industry has been more harmed by forced labor than the American garment industry, which employs 453,000 workers and has lost 41 plants in the past two years,” NCTO CEO Kim Glas said in a statement. “We remain very concerned that the USTR textile mechanism will harm the very domestic manufacturers that the administration seeks to help.”

The United States has two major laws related to forced labor import bans. The Tariff Act of 1930 gave Customs and Border Protection the authority to seize shipments suspected of forced labor and block future imports. But it had one big exception: if there was “consumptive demand,” that is, there was not enough supply to satisfy domestic demand, imports were allowed regardless of how they were produced. The Trade Facilitation and Enforcement Act that went into effect in 2016 closed that loophole.

In 2021, the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Law was passed. It blocks imports from China’s Xinjiang region unless companies can prove the items were made without forced labor.

But products made with forced labor can still reach the United States. In 2015, an Associated Press investigation found that slave labor was used in the Southeast Asian fishing industry. The seafood they caught found their way to supermarkets and pet food suppliers across the US.

A 2020 investigation by The Associated Press into the $65 billion palm oil industry found labor abuses among an invisible workforce of millions of men, women and children in Asia. The fruit they harvested found its way into the supply chains of major companies, including Unilever, L’Oreal, Nestlé and Procter. & Play.

During hearings on the tariffs this month, National Retail Federation Vice President Jonathan Gold, who represented the Joint Partnership Forced Labor Working Group business coalition at the hearing, said that for the import bans to work, they would have to be much more extensive.

He said there need to be “clear, measurable benchmarks” tied to tariffs that countries can achieve, and that the United States should help countries develop enforcement programs.

Kenya Davis, a partner at law firm Boies Schiller Flexner, said an effective ban needs a “comprehensive approach” that provides transparency about what the investigations involved, along with programs that give countries help enforcing the bans.