Philippine goods entering the United States will carry an additional 12.5-percent duty after President Donald Trump approved penalties against trading partners Washington deemed lax in blocking products tied to forced labor.
The Office of the United States Trade Representative disclosed the move Friday, Manila time, capping a review that ran several months and covered 60 economies. Each was measured against a single test: whether its rules actually keep out goods made through forced labor. Manila did not pass.
According to the USTR, the “Philippines has failed to impose and effectively enforce a forced-labor import prohibition.”
The added levy lands on the country’s most important trading relationship. American buyers took in $13.44 billion worth of Philippine goods last year, down from $14.5 billion in 2024 but still equal to 15.9 percent of total exports, keeping the US ahead of every other destination.
Sergio Ortiz-Luis Jr., president of the Philippine Exporters Confederation Inc., said in a phone interview Friday that the decision should prompt exporters to spread their bets across other markets. He described Washington’s approach to trade as increasingly difficult to predict.
“Trump is trying to weaponize tariffs against countries,” Ortiz-Luis told the Inquirer. “He is trying to look for other ways to impose (tariffs). He does not even consider that the Philippines is an ally of the United States.”
US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer cast the action as long overdue, pointing to restrictions Washington has enforced for close to a hundred years. “The United States has had a forced labor import ban for nearly a century, and rigorously enforces it; it’s well past time for our trading partners to do the same,” he said in a statement.
