Section 301 forced-labour tariffs replace the § 122 surcharge

The 10 percent § 122 import surcharge expired by operation of law at 12:01 a.m. eastern daylight time on 24 July 2026 — the 150-day ceiling of 19 U.S.C. § 2132(a), which Congress did not extend by Act of Congress (see Section 122 10% surcharge replaces IEEPA tariffs).¹² A presidential memorandum to the Trade Representative signed 23 July and published 28 July at 91 FR 47717 supplies the successor regime: it directs Section 301 tariffs across the 60 economies under the forced-labour investigation opened 12 March 2026, in which USTR determined on 2 June that each economy’s “acts, policies, and practices … are unreasonable and burden or restrict U.S. commerce” under 19 U.S.C. § 2411(b)(1) (see Forced-labour Section 301 investigation reaches three-month mark).³⁴ The memorandum sets a 10 percent rate for seventeen economies, a 12.5 percent rate for the remainder, most-favoured-nation- capped treatment for five economies, an exemption annex, and textile tariff-rate quotas for four economies that USTR reported will be feasible by 1 September 2026; USTR received more than 1,600 written comments and testimony from over 100 witnesses at hearings of 7-9 July.³ Trade-advisory coverage reported the replacement rates applying as the § 122 surcharge lapsed, leaving no gap at the border; operative collection attaches through the memorandum’s Annex modifications to the Harmonized Tariff Schedule and the USTR implementing notice and CBP guidance that carry § 301 rates into entry processing, instruments not yet located in the public record at publication.⁵³

1. The rate structure is graduated by the memorandum’s own compliance logic. The 10 percent tier covers Argentina, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Canada, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, India, Indonesia, Jordan, Malaysia, Mexico, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, the United Kingdom and Trinidad and Tobago — economies that impose but do not yet effectively enforce a forced-labour import prohibition, that undertook commitments in Agreements on Reciprocal Trade, or that imposed a partial regime; six of them (Cambodia, Guatemala, Honduras, India, Sri Lanka, Trinidad and Tobago) enacted prohibitions after the 2 June determinations and Jordan undertook a reciprocal-trade commitment, moving them to the lower tier.³ All other investigated economies — including China, Brazil, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Vietnam — carry 12.5 percent; for the European Union and Taiwan the § 301 duty is set so that MFN plus § 301 equals 10 percent (zero where MFN is already at or above 10 percent), and for Japan, Korea and Switzerland the same cap operates at 12.5 percent.³

2. The statutory pathway swap removes the clock. Section 122 ran on a 150-day fuse extendable only by Congress; § 301 actions carry no equivalent duration ceiling and are modifiable or terminable by USTR “as appropriate and subject to my specific direction” under § 307 of the Trade Act, 19 U.S.C. § 2417.³⁶ The pathway carries its own litigation exposure: § 301 actions are reviewable at the Court of International Trade under 28 U.S.C. § 1581(i)(1)(B) before three-judge panels, the same forum where the § 122 proclamation was struck on 7 May and the ruling stayed by the Federal Circuit (see CIT strikes down Section 122 tariffs and Federal Circuit stays CIT Section 122 ruling); the § 122 lapse ends prospective collection under that proclamation while the appeal continues to govern refund exposure for amounts already collected.⁷¹

3. The textile tariff-rate quotas are an export-conditioning instrument: TRQs for Bangladesh, Cambodia, Indonesia and Malaysia, of three years’ initial duration, will admit “a certain volume of specific textiles and apparel” at a zero § 301 rate scaled to each economy’s importation of U.S. textile goods and U.S. cotton, “in order to reduce reliance on inputs from other sources that are more likely to contain forced labor inputs”; until USTR establishes them — reported feasible by 1 September 2026 — the four economies’ covered textiles fall under the 10 percent tier the memorandum directs.³

4. The exemption annex tracks five stated categories, including “raw materials that if subject to these tariffs could lead to the unavailability of domestic supply,” “products that could cause economy-wide disruptions,” and products unavailable domestically “in sufficient quantities” — with the annex’s Harmonized Tariff Schedule modifications directing implementation, and a severability section providing that each of the 60 tariff actions “is separate from every other” and stands if any other is held invalid.³

Corrections

• 2026-09-24: The post placed the 150-day limit on § 122 surcharges at 19 U.S.C. § 2132(b) and described an extension by joint resolution under § 2132(d). The 15 percent cap, the 150-day limit and extension “by Act of Congress” are all in § 2132(a); § 2132(b) is the national-interest exception and § 2132(d) concerns nondiscriminatory treatment.¹