The Supreme Court told him the tariffs were illegal. So he kept the rates, swapped the legal citation, slapped “forced labor” on the label, and went right back to taxing 99.4% of U.S. imports like nothing happened. Twenty-five state attorneys general filed suit yesterday because they can read a calendar — the old tariffs expired and the new ones showed up at the same rates, on the same goods, the next business day. His own trade rep went on record promising “continuity.” That’s not even a cover story. That’s a guy plagiarizing his own paper after the professor caught him and resubmitting it with a different font.
The forced labor angle would be funny if it weren’t so cynical. This is a man whose businesses have been fined for labor violations, whose supply chains have never once been audited on camera, suddenly positioning himself as the global champion of worker dignity. He doesn’t care about forced labor in Myanmar. He cares that the Supreme Court took away his favorite toy and he needs a statute that lets him have it back. Section 301 was sitting there, so he grabbed it. The 60 countries on the list together cover almost every country that sells the U.S. anything. That’s not a targeted enforcement action. That’s a blanket tax with a human rights press release stapled to the front.
Meanwhile you’re still paying the markup. The tariff rate didn’t change. The goods didn’t change. The importer of record didn’t change. The only thing that changed is which century-old law he’s citing while your groceries cost more. The court said stop and he said make me, and so far nobody has.