WASHINGTON (September 14, 2026) — The Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) filed a friend-of-the-court brief Friday urging the U.S. Court of International Trade to strike down the Trump administration’s Section 301 tariffs on goods from 60 countries, arguing that the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) never showed that the countries actually import forced-labor goods, or that such imports burden American commerce.
The brief, filed in In Re Section 301 Forced Labor Cases (Court No. 26-cv-3555-3JP) by Nithya Nagarajan of Husch Blackwell on behalf of PPI and Ed Gresser, Vice President and Director for Trade and Global Markets at PPI, supports two groups of small businesses and a coalition of 25 Democratic state attorneys general who separately sued to challenge the tariffs. The Court of International Trade, which ruled last year that the administration’s separate emergency-powers tariffs exceeded presidential authority, is scheduled to hear oral arguments in the forced-labor imports case September 30.
On July 23, USTR imposed tariffs of 10% to 12.5% on goods from the 60 economies, which together supply 99% of U.S. imports, asserting that these countries either lack laws banning forced-labor imports comparable to America’s or else fail to sufficiently enforce the laws they do have.
In order to impose tariffs under Section 301, an administration must demonstrate that a foreign government’s “unreasonable” policies impose a “burden” on U.S. commerce. PPI’s brief points out that the Trump administration’s tariff order entirely fails to do this, since it neither presents evidence that any of the 60 targeted countries actually import forced-labor goods, nor proves that such imports would “burden” U.S. commerce. PPI estimates the tariff, if upheld, will cost Americans roughly $100 billion a year, nearly 100 times the $1.3 billion in goods Customs and Border Protection has blocked annually, on average, over the last five years on suspicion of forced-labor content.
“Section 301 does not authorize any general tariff increase of this sort,” said Gresser, “and any administration hoping to use it to impose tariffs on goods from specific countries must show clear evidence of actual policies imposing a ‘burden’ on U.S. commerce and demonstrate these policies’ real-world economic harm. Since, as our Amicus brief shows, the Trump administration has done neither of these things, it has no right to impose these tariffs.”
PPI’s Amicus brief concludes by affirming that “forced labor is an egregious abuse of human rights, and U.S. policy has an important role to play in eliminating it at home and worldwide,” and urging the U.S. government, once the Burlap and Barrel case has closed, to “return to vigorous support for forced-labor remediation and eradication abroad and at home, and cooperation with governments seeking to improve their laws and implementation.”
Read the amicus brief here.
Founded in 1989, PPI is a catalyst for policy innovation and political reform based in Washington, D.C. Its mission is to create radically pragmatic ideas for moving America beyond ideological and partisan deadlock. Find an expert and learn more about PPI by visiting progressivepolicy.org. Follow us at @ppi.
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Media Contact: Ian O’Keefe – iokeefe@ppionline.org
