The United States on Thursday hit dozens of countries — including Canada — with new tariffs over what the Trump administration called their “failure” to stop imports of products made with forced labour.

Sixty countries were targeted overall, with Canada among 17 nations that face a baseline 10 per cent tariff, including Mexico and the United Kingdom.

The remaining countries, which include the European Union, were hit with a 10 to 12.5 per cent tariff rate.

“Today’s action will begin to correct what is both a human rights abuse and distortive trade practice to improve the welfare of workers everywhere,” U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said in a statement.

Global News has asked the White House and Greer’s office whether the tariff will apply to goods traded under the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement on free trade (CUSMA).

Back when the tariffs were first announced in June, Prime Minister Mark Carney said CUSMA-compliant goods would be exempt.

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“This is not a surprise,” Carney told reporters in Ottawa at the time.

“It’s something that the U.S. has been planning for a few months,” he added.

CUSMA includes commitments for Canada and Mexico to adopt stricter forced labour protections for their supply chains. The Liberal government introduced legislation to do just that days after the U.S. announced its proposed tariffs, but the bill has not yet been passed into law.

The new tariffs will take effect just as temporary 10 per cent worldwide tariffs expire at 12:01 a.m. Friday. U.S. President Donald Trump had turned to those temporary levies after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down his so-called “reciprocal” and national emergency-based tariffs in February.

Now he’s tapping more durable tariffs under Section 301 of the U.S. Trade Act of 1974, which permits the president to impose import taxes and other sanctions against countries found to engage in “unjustifiable,” “unreasonable” or “discriminatory” trade practices.

Trump used Section 301 to impose big tariffs on China in his first term, and they survived court challenges.

The new tariffs come as Canada faces the prospect of steep 50 per cent tariffs on a swath of products — including those covered by CUSMA — now set to take effect on Aug. 19.

Trump announced those tariffs earlier this week, which he said were in response to Canada’s retaliatory measures over his initial tariffs as well as supply management import quotas for the Canadian diary industry.