The United States is preparing a new push in global trade policy, imposing tariffs of between 10% and 12.5% on 60 countries that together account for 99% of US goods imports.
Analysts at credit insurer Coface said that despite legal obstacles the country has faced in recent months, the shift shows Washington's determination to maintain a high level of trade protection.
The move coincides with the expiration of temporary tariffs set under Section 122 of US trade law, which have now been replaced by the new levies. Coface said the immediate impact on the average US tariff rate should be limited, since the new measures do not automatically stack on top of existing tariffs and do not significantly change the average rate applied to American imports.
Legal shift to Section 301
The new duties rely on Section 301, the same provision the first Trump administration used to impose tariffs, particularly on China. Coface noted that Section 301 gives the White House a more solid and clearly established legal basis than the IEEPA-based regime, whose strength has been questioned because it lacks explicit authorization to impose tariffs.
Coface's experts said Washington is challenging the affected countries by asserting they lack effective mechanisms to prohibit or control imports linked to forced labor, adding that importing companies could question this justification, especially given how broad the group of affected trading partners is.
Marcos Carias, Coface's North America economist, said the decision is not simply a technical renewal of existing tariffs. He said it shows, above all, Washington's intent to turn a contested regime into a more sustainable tariff framework, and that for companies the message is clear: the risk from US tariffs remains high even when a measure is about to expire.
Investigation targets 16 economies
The new tariffs do not fully restore the previous regime, since that earlier framework also included additional surcharges targeting specific countries or products. Coface said this second layer of measures is what Washington could try to reinstate in the coming months.
To that end, the US has opened a new investigation under Section 301 focused on structural overcapacity in 16 economies, including China, the European Union, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, India, Vietnam, Mexico and several Southeast Asian countries. The timeline and the level of any resulting tariffs remain unknown.
Washington is also pursuing separate sector-specific investigations covering aerospace, drones, medical equipment, robotics, industrial machinery, wind turbines, critical minerals and polysilicon. No specific measures from those probes can yet be predicted, but Coface said they confirm that US tariff policy remains in full evolution.
