A New US Tariff Applies from 24 July. It Comes in Three Forms, and One of Them Is Yours

Trump’s global tariffs were struck down by the US Supreme Court. Yet tariffs have not ceased to apply for a single day: the temporary one has just expired and the new one is already in force. It comes in three forms, and which of them hits your shipment matters more to your margin than the price does.

Since 24 July 2026, a new US tariff under Section 301 of the US Trade Act of 1974 has applied to goods from 60 economies, including the Union. It took effect in the very minute that the temporary 10 percent tariff expired – the tariff with which the administration had, since February, been covering the gap left by the tariffs struck down by the US Supreme Court. The surcharge under Section 122 of the same Act could last no more than 150 days, and those have just run out. It came as no surprise: the investigation had been running since March, and the proposed rates had been on the table since June.

It is not, however, a single rate but three regimes, and the difference between them matters more than the number.

For the first group, the tariff is topped up to a ceiling. The ceiling is the agreed total burden that the US is not to exceed on goods from the country concerned, and the new tariff is only the difference still missing to reach the ceiling. For Union goods, the ceiling is 10 %: with a standard most-favoured-nation rate of 3.7 %, 6.3 % is added; with a zero rate, the full 10 %; with a rate of 12 %, nothing. The same mechanism, with a ceiling of 12.5 %, applies to Japan, South Korea and Switzerland, so Swiss goods pay 12.5 % including the standard duty.

Vietnam, China and 36 other economies received the full 12.5 %, but on top of the standard rate, not up to a ceiling. The same number thus means two different things: Swiss goods pay 12.5 % in total, Vietnamese goods pay the standard rate plus another 12.5 %.

The remaining seventeen countries with at least a partial ban on such imports, including the United Kingdom, Canada, Mexico and India, pay a flat 10 % on top of the standard rate.

For a Slovak exporter, one thing follows from this: their position vis-à-vis Asian competitors has improved. Anyone competing on the same tariff line with a Vietnamese or Chinese supplier now has an advantage of several percentage points in the duty-paid price – an argument for the next round of price negotiations.

Overall, this is a relief for goods from the Union. The temporary tariff that applied until 24 July was added on top of the standard rate; the new tariff is counted towards it. A product with a standard duty of 3.7 % paid 13.7 % in duty until 24 July; from now on it pays 10 %. With a standard duty of 10 %, ten percent is paid instead of 20, so the saving equals the standard rate.

Goods already subject to tariffs under Section 232 of the US Trade Expansion Act of 1962 are excluded from the scope, namely cars and their parts, steel, aluminium and copper, as well as aircraft, critical minerals, oil and gas. And one deadline is running right now: a shipment in the final leg of transport before 24 July does not pay the new tariff if the importer enters it for consumption in the US before 28 July 2026.

The change of legal basis is not a formality. The struck-down tariffs were based on the US International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), and in Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump the Supreme Court concluded, by six votes to three, that this Act does not give the President the power to impose tariffs, because levying duties is a matter for Congress. Section 301 does confer such authority, but it requires an investigation. Washington completed it and based it on a gap on our side: Regulation (EU) 2024/3015 prohibiting products made with forced labour will apply only from 14 December 2027. The new tariff is therefore considerably more likely to survive in court, and anyone planning on the assumption that it will fall is planning badly.

A short digression: money from the previous round is still on the table. Of the approximately USD 166 billion collected under IEEPA, US Customs and Border Protection has refunded the greater part. However, it refunds the money to whoever is recorded as the importer in the import entry, and that need not be the party that actually bore the duty. Under DDP delivery, the seller bears the duty: if the seller was also recorded as the importer, it receives the money directly; if the importer was the buyer or a freight forwarder, they receive it, and the seller is left with a contractual claim. Check both, therefore: who was recorded as the importer and who bore the duty under the contract.

Back to the core issue. The three tariff regimes also raise the cost of getting origin wrong. Origin is determined under the US non-preferential rules of origin, i.e. by the substantial transformation test, not under the Union’s rules. If Slovak assembly from Chinese components does not amount to substantial transformation, the goods are not Union goods, and instead of the difference up to 10 % they will be hit by the full 12.5 % plus the US tariffs on China.

The contract should therefore specify who is the importer, who bears the additional duty, a right to adjust the price if the rate changes for a specific tariff line, and a right to any later refund of that duty. Under DDP delivery, the Slovak supplier bears not only the duty but also the cost of pre-financing it.

And that is not the end of it: a second Section 301 investigation is also targeting the Union.

Anyone exporting goods originating in the Union to the US has, since 24 July, been paying an additional duty up to a total of 10 %, depending on the tariff line.

One deadline is running right now, and it is more valuable than it seems. A shipment that was in the final leg of transport before 24 July does not pay the new tariff if the importer enters it for consumption in the US before 28 July 2026. As the temporary surcharge has meanwhile expired, such goods from the Union – outside the Section 232 regime – will clear with the standard rate only. Four days without any additional duty will certainly show in the calculation.

If you export to the US and do not know which of the three regimes and what additional duty applies to your tariff lines, we will be happy to go through the matrix of goods, origin and classification with you.