OPINION: The tariff lottery — when Trump draws the world's trade destinies at random

Introduction: Washington's great tariff casino

A geopolitical roulette with no clear rules

Imagine you run a business in Singapore, Johannesburg or Manila. You have been exporting to the United States for decades. You follow the rules, you pay your taxes, you maintain solid commercial relationships with American buyers. And one morning in June 2026, you learn that your country is now accused of tolerating forced labor — and that as a consequence, your exports will be hit with a 12.5% tariff. Not because you practice forced labor. Not because a single enslaved person has been found in your factory. But because your country does not have a formal system prohibiting the importation of goods produced with forced labor. It is like convicting a motorist for the absence of a seatbelt in a car they never drove.

Welcome to Donald Trump's tariff lottery — second edition, judicial version. After the United States Supreme Court struck down the tariffs imposed under IEEPA in February 2026 in Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump, the administration rolled a new set of dice. This time, it is reaching for Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 to reconstruct the same tariff wall that the courts dismantled — playing yet another hand against international law and diplomatic common sense.

The mechanics of chaos

On June 2, 2026, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer announced a proposal to establish tariffs ranging from 10% to 12.5% on imports from roughly 60 economies — covering virtually all American imports — on the grounds that these countries have not done enough to combat forced labor in their supply chains. The timeline is brutal: public comments until July 6, a hearing on July 7, tariffs potentially in force before July 24 — the expiration date for the temporary tariffs decreed under Section 122. This is not trade policy. It is diplomatic pyrotechnics on a lawyer's schedule.

The logic, as best as it can be reconstructed, is as follows: regardless of the stated justification, the real objective is to keep tariff revenues "virtually unchanged" in 2026, as the administration's own officials admitted. Marc Mealy, executive vice president of the US-ASEAN Business Council, said it plainly: "The administration has been pretty clear that its intention is to use Section 301 as a basis to recreate the IEEPA tariffs the courts have invalidated." One cannot be more transparent about the system's opacity.

Singapore in the crosshairs: absurdity pushed to the extreme

A global hub accused of forced labor without evidence

Singapore is one of the most regulated, most transparent and most globally integrated economies in the world. Its labor standards rank among the strictest in Asia. Its poverty rate is structurally low, and its economic model is built on competitiveness through excellence rather than social dumping. And yet, according to the USTR's 98-page report, Singapore is among the 60 economies accused of failing to impose and effectively enforce a prohibition on the importation of goods produced with forced labor. This conclusion spans two or three paragraphs in the report — following an investigation conducted over three months.

The concrete result: approximately one third of Singapore's domestic exports to the United States could be subject to a 12.5% tariff. Singapore's Ministry of Trade and Industry responded with a clarity that cuts through Washington's fog: "There is no evidence of Singapore's involvement in supply chains associated with forced labour, and Singapore is not aware of any forced labour goods being exported to the United States from Singapore." The problem is not the existence of forced labor in Singapore. The problem, according to Washington, is the absence of a formal prohibition text — a bureaucratic technicality transformed into a tariff pretext.

Experts stunned by the city-state's inclusion

William Reinsch, a trade expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), is categorical: no evidence of involvement was presented by the USTR against Singapore. He notes bitterly that the administration appears to have simply targeted "all the countries with which it has negotiated a trade agreement or with which the United States has trade relations." That is: everyone, without discrimination, without analysis, without justice. Madeline Chalecki, a senior analyst at the Atlantic Council, describes the use of Section 301 against Singapore as an "convoluted argument and a novel use of Section 301." According to her, Section 301 was never designed to address a global problem like forced labor across 60 countries simultaneously.

Manu Bhaskaran, a Singaporean economist and partner at Centennial Group International, sums up the situation with a lucidity that stings: "The reasons are mystifying since we don't have forced labour and our standards are strict. But the reasons don't matter. This is not a matter of facts; it's a matter of what the administration thinks it can impose on others." He adds: the administration needs tariffs to fill the fiscal gap created by its budget policy. Singapore is caught in the net not for what it does, but for what it represents: a trading partner sufficiently integrated to be profitable to tax.

South Africa: thirty percent to punish Ramaphosa

American domestic politics exported as a tariff

The tariff history between South Africa and the Trump administration is a textbook case in the confusion of American domestic politics with international trade policy. In April 2025, Trump inflicted a rate of 30% on all of South Africa's exports to the United States — a decision motivated, by his own repeated declarations, by allegations of discrimination against white Afrikaners leveled against the Ramaphosa government. Never mind that this accusation was disputed by South African authorities and numerous international observers: the 30% rate fell like a verdict.

The result was immediate and devastating. South Africa's merchandise shipments to the United States plunged 56% year-on-year, reaching just $3.5 billion through April 2026. AGOA — the American program that had granted dozens of thousands of African products duty-free access to the U.S. market — was in practice nullified for South Africa. Businesses, farmers, automotive and textile exporters absorbed the shock with no recourse, no negotiation, and not even a real commercial justification.

From 30% to 12.5%: the reward for forced submission

Today, under the new Section 301 investigations, South Africa's rate is expected to stabilize at 12.5% following the conclusion of the forced labor inquiry. A drop of 17.5 percentage points. Some might see this as an improvement. It should mainly be read as revealing the system's true nature: an maximum penalty is inflicted, then reduced to signal presidential magnanimity, while maintaining structural pressure on a partner that has committed no objective commercial offense.

President Cyril Ramaphosa had himself noted that the 30% rate was unjustified, pointing out that 77% of American goods enter South Africa duty-free. This is a colossal asymmetry that no one in Washington seems willing to acknowledge. South Africa is now among the eight African economies named in the forced labor investigations — alongside Algeria, Angola, Egypt, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco and Nigeria. All have until July 6 to make their case. Most are not ready.

The Philippines: winners despite themselves in a rigged game

From 19% to 12.5%: relative relief in an absurd context

The Philippines find themselves in a paradoxical position: they could emerge as winners from Trump's tariff overhaul — not because they negotiated better, nor because they have more virtuous trade practices, but because the administration's calculations land them at a more favorable rate than the one "Liberation Day" imposed in April 2025. Under the initial IEEPA tariffs, Manila faced a rate of 19%. Under the new Section 301 structure, this rate would drop to 12.5% — a reduction of nearly seven percentage points.

Concretely, American imports from the Philippines reached $7.7 billion in the first four months of 2026 — a 51% increase compared to the same period in 2025. This surge reflects a partial reorientation of global supply chains, as businesses seek to circumvent the higher tariffs striking other Southeast Asian countries. The archipelago benefits from an accidental fact: it is not included in the industrial overcapacity investigation, which spares it an additional tariff layer.

A victory that is no victory at all

But let us call things by their name. The Philippines do not "win" because they deserve a lower rate. They win because the dice happened to land in their favor this time. If tomorrow the administration decides to launch an investigation into overcapacities in Filipino electronics or services, the rate could climb back up in a matter of weeks. There is no permanent rule, no treaty providing protection, no legal certainty that holds — only the next round of the ongoing investigation.

Economist Manu Bhaskaran is right on one fundamental point: the reasons stated do not matter. What counts is the American administration's capacity to impose its will. And within that framework, a win for the Philippines today is nothing more than a parenthesis inside a structurally unpredictable logic. Businesses relocating their supply chains to Manila in response to current tariffs could find themselves trapped tomorrow if the wind changes.

Myanmar, Laos, Lesotho: the unexpected winners of the wheel of chance

From 44% to near zero: the grand incoherence of the rates

If one wants to measure the absolute incoherence of the Trumpian tariff system, consider Myanmar. In April 2025, this country — shattered by a military coup, torn by civil war, ranked among the world's most fragile economies — was slapped with a 44% tariff on its exports to the United States. In June 2026, under the new Section 301 structure, the same country could see this rate fall to between zero and two percent. The same trajectory applies to Laos and Lesotho.

How does one explain such a variation without any coherent political, economic or moral justification? The answer is simple and damning: these countries are not covered by the current investigations. They fall into an unintentional exemption zone. Their fate was not decided through meritocratic analysis. It was decided by the limits of American bureaucracy — by the scope of the investigations, by the lists of applicable HS codes, by product exemption decisions. The system does not reward virtue. It rewards chance.

Pakistan: a 19-point drop by accident

Pakistan illustrates the same logic. Under IEEPA tariffs, Islamabad faced a rate of 29%. Under the new framework, the rate would drop to 10% — a reduction of 19 percentage points. And why? Because Pakistan is classified among the economies that have adopted or partially implemented restrictions against forced labor — a qualification earning it the lower 10% rate rather than 12.5%. But this qualification itself is decided unilaterally by Washington, with no independent verification process and no multilateral validation.

Conversely, the United Kingdom — a major U.S. ally, signatory to a bilateral trade agreement — finds itself in the 12.5% tier, above the 10% rate negotiated under the agreement. London had to remind Washington of its commitments. USTR Greer assured that "a deal is a deal" — but the very fact that this assurance was necessary illustrates how much trust has frayed.

The Supreme Court said no — and Trump responded with another roll of the dice

Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump: the ruling that changed everything

On February 20, 2026, the United States Supreme Court handed down a landmark ruling in Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump. By six votes to three, it found that the IEEPA — the International Emergency Economic Powers Act — did not authorize the president to impose customs tariffs. Tariffs, the Court recalled, constitute a fundamentally legislative fiscal power, requiring explicit congressional delegation that the IEEPA does not provide. The "Liberation Day" tariffs of April 2025 were invalidated. U.S. Customs refunds began being processed.

But the Trump administration did not yield. The very next day, it triggered Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 to impose a universal 10% surcharge on virtually all imports for 150 days. On May 7, 2026, the Court of International Trade ruled this recourse also illegal — but the ruling is on appeal and tariffs continue to be collected. Section 122 expires on July 24, 2026, absent a congressional extension. The clock is running.

Section 301: the last legal recourse — until the next one

Section 301, unlike IEEPA and Section 122, allows the government to set country-by-country rates at the conclusion of formal investigations. It is more legally solid, but also far slower and more procedural. It requires consultations, public hearings, comment periods. What is a democratic safeguard has become a constraint the administration is trying to sidestep by artificially compressing the timeline so that new tariffs take effect before the temporary tariffs expire.

Alan Wolff, former WTO deputy director-general, warned that the massive and indiscriminate use of Section 301 to impose universal tariffs is legally vulnerable — and that courts could strike it down for the same reasons they invalidated IEEPA and Section 122. He writes: "Courts will likely analyze this issue as they analyzed and found that neither the emergency authority under IEEPA nor the balance of payments authority under Section 122 empowered the President to impose tariffs generally on virtually all imports from virtually all countries." The tariff wall is being rebuilt — on foundations perhaps as fragile as the previous ones.

American credibility at stake: when allies no longer trust

Trade agreements that Washington itself calls into question

One of the most serious consequences of Trumpian tariff policy is not economic — it is diplomatic and institutional. Countries like Japan, South Korea, the United Kingdom and the European Union signed trade agreements with the United States in 2025, intended to cap their tariff rates at negotiated levels. These agreements were presented as diplomatic victories — proof that trade could be renegotiated in good faith.

Yet, under the new Section 301 forced labor investigations, the United Kingdom finds itself taxed at 12.5% — above the 10% negotiated in its agreement. Germany is the subject of a new Section 301 investigation for "persistent underpayment for innovative pharmaceutical products" — a definition so vague it could target any public health policy in the world. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz reminded Washington of its commitments. The European Commission must decide before December 31, 2026 whether to revoke tariff preferences on American goods in response to tariffs on metal derivatives.

A dangerous precedent for the global trade order

What we are witnessing is the progressive deinstitutionalization of international trade. For decades, the United States was the principal guarantor and architect of the liberal trade order — the WTO, the GATT, bilateral agreements. Trump 1.0 cracked this model. Trump 2.0 is dynamiting it methodically, piece by piece, agreement by agreement, tribunal after tribunal.

American trading partners no longer know where they stand. An agreement signed today can be called into question tomorrow through a Section 301 investigation. A negotiated rate can be overridden by a new surcharge. A sector exempt today can be targeted next week by a presidential decree. Manu Bhaskaran put it with disarming clarity: "This is not a matter of facts. It's a matter of what the administration thinks it can impose on others." When the world's most powerful partner adopts this posture, the multilateral system can only unravel.

Forced labor as pretext: an accusation that does not hold up to scrutiny

A three-month investigation to condemn 60 economies

We must look squarely at what the administration has done: in three months, it produced a 98-page report concluding that 60 economies — representing virtually all American imports — "have all failed to enact and effectively enforce a prohibition on the importation of goods produced with forced labor." This uniform conclusion, applied indiscriminately from Myanmar to Australia, from Singapore to Brazil, is analytically untenable.

According to the International Labour Organization, approximately 28 million people were in situations of forced labor in 2022 worldwide. This is a real, serious human tragedy that deserves a coordinated response. But that response cannot consist of uniformly taxing 60 countries on the basis of two or three paragraphs in a report, without any distinction between those with robust laws and those with none. Madeline Chalecki confirms it: "It would be extremely difficult to prove that all countries are actively engaged in a practice that directly harms American industry." That is why the easier argument was chosen: complicity by inaction within a global system.

A precedent that can legitimize anything

The jurisprudence created by this investigation is terrifying in its scope. If the mere absence of a formal system prohibiting the importation of goods produced with forced labor is sufficient to justify punitive tariffs, then any absence of domestic legislation on any subject can become tomorrow a tariff justification. No digital content law? Tariff. No pesticide regulation identical to that of the United States? Tariff. No pension system deemed adequate? Tariff. The door is open to a form of regulatory imperialism without precedent in modern trade law.

William Reinsch of CSIS notes that the administration appears to have simply targeted all partners with which the United States has trade relations. This is not a policy. It is a net cast at random in the ocean of global trade, with the only criterion being the density of the potential catch.

The geography of arbitrariness: who wins, who loses, and why it makes no sense

Decisions that defy all comparative logic

Look at the numbers side by side. Myanmar, shattered by civil war since the 2021 coup, governed by a military junta accused of crimes against humanity: potential rate between 0% and 2%. Singapore, stable democracy, ultra-regulated service economy, active WTO member: proposed rate of 12.5% plus an additional layer tied to overcapacities. South Africa, whose 77% of American goods enter duty-free: punished at 30% for a full year for reasons of American domestic politics.

These disparities do not reflect real differences in trade practices. They reflect the random intersection of ongoing investigations, product exemption lists, prior bilateral agreements and presidential moods. An anonymous trade veteran quoted by the Straits Times summarizes the Singapore paradox: "An intellectually honest analysis would show that Singapore, as a small country, has a lot of industrial capacity because its economy is competitive to attract investment, not because it uses subsidies or unfair trade rules."

Multinational corporations in turmoil

Large global companies planning their supply chains five or ten years out find themselves in an impossible situation. Logistics consultants observe massive reorganizations toward low-tariff countries — the Philippines, Pakistan — which could themselves become targets tomorrow. C.H. Robinson, one of the largest American logistics providers, notes in its June 2026 analyses that the approach is seen as "a legally cleaner way to replace the expired temporary tariffs" while preserving "flexibility to layer on additional measures." That is a polite way of saying: expect more surprises.

American consumers themselves bear part of the bill. The Federal Reserve estimated that tariffs put in place through November 2025 had already pushed prices of personal consumption goods up by 3.1% in core PCE terms as of February 2026. The Yale Budget Lab calculates that tariffs in force in 2026 could further increase consumer prices by 0.5% to 0.6%, representing a loss of $600 to $800 per American household in the short term.

The EU, Japan and South Korea: traditional partners destabilized

Trade agreements under permanent pressure

The European Union finally ratified its trade agreement with the United States on June 16, 2026 — after months of hesitation, particularly in the European Parliament. The agreement provides for an American tariff of 15% on most European exports and the elimination of duties on many American agricultural and food products entering the EU. But ratification came under duress: Trump had set July 4, 2026 as the deadline beyond which tariffs on European automobiles would jump from 15% to 25%.

Despite this, the ink on the agreement had barely dried when the administration launched a Section 301 investigation against Germany for "persistent underpayment for innovative pharmaceutical products." Chancellor Merz responded that decisions on pharmaceutical payments fall under German national policy, not a trade agreement. But the American initiative illustrates a clear pattern: signed agreements hold only until the next investigation, the next pretext, the next presidential pressure.

China as an involuntary counter-example

In this chaotic landscape, China offers a striking counter-example. Trump had promised during his 2024 campaign to impose 60% tariffs on Chinese imports. The effective rate in June 2026, according to Bloomberg Economics, is approximately 21% — well below the initial threats. The Sino-American trade truce negotiated in 2025 expires in the fall, and both countries must renegotiate. Meanwhile, Xi Jinping demonstrated his leverage by blocking rare earth exports the previous year — a pressure tool that few other countries possess.

The lesson drawn by less powerful countries is bitter: firmness pays. China obtains better terms than Singapore. Agreements signed in good faith are called into question. Investigations punish cooperative partners as much as adversaries. In this context, what incentive remains to cooperate with Washington?

Judicial avenues: a resistance taking shape

Inevitable challenges, but slow ones

Legal scholars are unanimous: legal challenges against the new Section 301 tariffs are inevitable. But the timeline is problematic. Plaintiffs cannot file challenges before the tariffs are actually in place — that is, not before July 24, 2026, the expiration date of the temporary Section 122 tariffs. According to William Reinsch, the first court decisions could come in early fall, with inevitable appeals concluding by year end, and a potential Supreme Court decision arriving only the following year.

In the meantime, businesses pay the tariffs. Foreign governments absorb the economic effects. Supply chains are disrupted. Alan Wolff, former WTO deputy director-general, believes the mass use of Section 301 for universal tariffs is vulnerable for the same reasons that led to the invalidations of IEEPA and Section 122. Wendy Cutler, former U.S. trade negotiator, anticipates procedural and substantive challenges — but acknowledges uncertainty about judicial outcomes.

The risk of normalizing unpredictability

There is a deeper danger than the tariffs themselves: the normalization of unpredictability as a tool of economic governance. If businesses, governments and investors learn to plan in an environment where rules constantly change, they will stop fighting to restore them. Unpredictability will become the new normal. And in this new world, the great powers that can absorb uncertainty will survive — but mid-sized and small economies, and exporters who depend on stable supply chains, will pay the heaviest price.

Madeline Chalecki of the Atlantic Council sums up the legal challenge with clarity: the administration needs to find a question that can justify a universal tariff, as IEEPA or Section 122 did. Section 301 is its third attempt. If courts invalidate it in turn, there will be a fourth attempt. There is no signal that the administration will abandon its objective of tariff revenues maintained virtually unchanged.

Trump as a necessary evil: what the West can defend, and what it must criticize

Firmness as an asset — arbitrariness as a poison

Let us be honest about what Trump is doing right. His aggressive trade posture has highlighted real imbalances — persistent trade surpluses, dumping practices, the West's excessive dependence on Chinese supply chains. It is not wrong to say that the global trade system as it existed before 2025 favored powers that did not respect its rules. China, in particular, built its industrial rise by exempting itself from the constraints that WTO rules imposed on others.

On this point, the Trump administration has an instinct that is not entirely wrong: the United States could not indefinitely continue financing the rise of its strategic adversaries through asymmetric commercial openness. This reasoning is defensible. Firmness toward Beijing, toward Moscow, toward powers that weaponize trade as geopolitical leverage is a necessity for the West.

What cannot be defended

But taxing Singapore for forced labor on the basis of two paragraphs has nothing to do with strategic firmness. Punishing South Africa at 30% for reasons of American domestic politics is not trade policy — it is political coercion. Opening an investigation against Germany a month after signing an agreement with the EU is deliberately sabotaging the credibility of American commitments. Tariff arbitrariness is not a necessary evil. It is simply an evil — because it undermines American credibility with the very allies needed to form the Western front against the real threats: China, Russia, Iran and North Korea.

One cannot ask allies to rally around the American flag against Beijing while inflicting arbitrary tariffs on them based on legal pretexts recycled from one court to the next. Credibility is built through consistency. It is destroyed through unpredictability. And that is what Trump's tariff lottery is doing — methodically destroying the trust that allied democracies spent decades building.

The lottery and its structural consequences: a world reorganizing without Washington

Diversification as a response to American unpredictability

Faced with American tariff unpredictability, trading partners are organizing. South Africa and Rwanda engaged in a major diplomatic reset in June 2026, normalizing their relations after more than a decade of bilateral tensions — driven in part by the necessity of building resilient African trade corridors in the face of a Washington closing its doors. President Ramaphosa was explicit: if Washington closes its door, African corridors must remain open.

Southeast Asian countries are accelerating ASEAN integration — precisely because unpredictable American tariffs make excessive dependence on the American market structurally dangerous. The Yale Budget Lab calculated at the start of the year that the average American tariff rate had reached its highest level since the Great Depression of the 1930s. This single data point says everything: the United States is playing with the tools of an era the rest of the world believed was over.

The United States pays the price of its own incoherence

American exports are also suffering. When China blocked rare earth exports in retaliation for American tariffs, American electronics and defense industries felt the impact immediately. When European trading partners consider revoking preferences on American goods if Washington does not yield on metal tariffs, it is American agriculture and services exporters who are on the front lines. The trade war cuts both ways — and the American administration sometimes seems surprised by the retaliation it generates.

The message received by trading partners around the world is this: America is no longer an anchor of predictability in the global trade system. It is an actor whose decisions depend on a combination of domestic politics, judicial pressure, presidential mood and fiscal revenue calculations. In this context, diversifying partners, reducing dependence on the United States, building regional alternatives is no longer an option — it is a strategic necessity.

Conclusion: leaving the casino, finding the compass

What trade policy should look like

A serious trade policy rests on coherent principles, transparent processes and durable commitments. It distinguishes strategic adversaries — China, which massively subsidizes its industries, Russia, which wields energy as a weapon — from good-faith partners who deserve predictable and fair treatment. It deploys pressure tools where they are needed, not merely where they are legally available. It recognizes that American credibility is a strategic asset that gets spent, and only reconstitutes with great difficulty.

Trump's tariff lottery does the opposite on every one of these counts. It conflates adversaries and partners. It invokes recycled legal justifications that courts invalidate one after another. It imposes rates with no relation to the actual trade practices of the targeted countries. And it generates, with each new judicial round, a little more distrust from partners who would have every interest in forming a united front with Washington against the real threats.

What the West must demand

The West — Europe, Japan, Asia's and Africa's democracies — must speak with a firm and unified voice on this subject. Not to defend free trade as an end in itself, but to defend predictability as the foundation of international economic cooperation. Washington's trading partners cannot plan, invest, or cooperate on broader issues — defense, technology, climate — in an environment where the rules of the game change with every new Section 301 investigation.

Trump may be a necessary evil for the West on certain fronts — firmness toward China, pressure on NATO allies to increase defense spending, resistance to Moscow's imperial ambitions. But tariff arbitrariness is not in that category. It weakens the West from within by undermining the trust of its own allies. And a West that no longer trusts its own load-bearing pillar is a vulnerable West — precisely in the face of the powers awaiting that vulnerability to exploit it.

Signed Maxime Marquette, columnist

Sources

Primary sources

Trump's new US tariff wall shakes up winners, losers lineup — The Star / Bloomberg, June 22, 2026

Another rumble in the trade jungle: Will Trump's new tariffs survive a court challenge? — The Straits Times, June 21, 2026

Trump Tariff Tracker — Atlantic Council, updated June 17, 2026

Secondary sources

European Parliament finally approves Trump tariff deal — The Guardian, June 16, 2026

Trump says he would rather not have his North American trade deal — Axios, June 17, 2026

Key U.S. Import Developments, June 2026 — Wilson Sonsini, June 18, 2026

Eight African Economies Have Six Weeks to Respond to US Tariff Threat — AmCham South Africa, June 17, 2026

Tariff Tracker: Update for 22 June 2026 — Everstream Analytics, June 22, 2026