The United States on Friday will impose new tariffs of either 10% or 12.5% on goods from its top 60 trading partners, including China, Japan and Thailand, officials said, citing their alleged failure to adequately ban the import of goods made with forced labour.

Thursday's announcement came ahead of the expiration of the 10% global tariff that President Donald Trump introduced in February shortly after the Supreme Court invalidated his sweeping country-specific "reciprocal" duties, as well as fentanyl-related levies against products from China, Canada and Mexico.

"President Trump recognises that decades of moral suasion have not eradicated forced labour from global supply chains," US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said in a statement.

"The United States has had a forced-labour import ban for nearly a century, and rigorously enforces it; it's well past time for our trading partners to do the same," Greer said.

The targeted trading partners, also including Australia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Switzerland, Taiwan and Thailand, account for about 99% of US imports, according to the Office of the US Trade Representative.

The tariff rates differ depending on the seriousness of forced labour allegations assessed by the administration.

While most of the US partners will be hit by new 12.5% tariffs, about 20 others, including Britain, Indonesia, Malaysia and Mexico, will face duties of 10% as the administration views them as having taken greater legal steps to prevent the import of goods suspected of being produced with forced labour.

Among its key Asian trading partners, the US will apply the higher rate to Japan and South Korea. But the two countries will receive special treatment, with items already subject to tariffs of 12.5% or higher being exempted from the new measure.

Unlike the US allies, China will not receive preferential treatment, meaning the new tariff of 12.5% will be added on top of existing import taxes.

The new tariff will not be applied to imports already hit by sector-specific duties that Trump has levied on national security grounds since his return to office in January last year, such as automobiles and steel products.

The US administration launched trade investigations in March to replace a large chunk of Trump's far-reaching tariffs struck down by the Supreme Court.

Greer and other senior officials have asserted that US companies compete against foreign rivals on an uneven playing field, claiming many trading partners have reduced costs by making use of forced labour.

In addition to the forced labour probe, the administration has been looking into what it sees as unfair practices related to excess industrial capacity in 16 economies, including China, India, Japan, Vietnam and the EU.

Following the stinging defeat at the top court, the administration imposed the 10% tariff under a different legal authority, but it was permitted to last only 150 days unless Congress approved an extension.

The temporary tariff under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974, which allows a president to impose import taxes of up to 15% to address "large and serious" balance-of-payments deficits, is due to expire at 12.01am on Friday in Washington.

While imposing the blanket tariff, the administration had been exploring more durable country-by-country duties, using Section 301 of the trade law.

The statute, which allows the US government to impose tariffs in response to a foreign country's alleged unfair practices, was a favourite tool of Trump for justifying higher levies on Chinese imports when he started a trade war with Beijing during his first term as president.