Forced to Act: What Sections 301 and 307 Mean for US Companies

On June 2, 2026, the Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR) announced its preliminary findings on all 60 economies investigated under Section 301. The USTR determined that every major US trading partner has failed to adequately prohibit or enforce bans on imports made with forced labor. Together, these economies account for roughly 90% of US imports, and USTR has proposed an additional 10% to 12.5% tariff on top of existing duties. 

Expected to be finalized by July 24, these tariffs arrive alongside the new US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) guidance outlining the rigorous evidence companies must provide to show individual shipments are free of forced labor. Executives across risk management, procurement, sustainability, and finance are now facing pressure from two directions at once. A country can be hit with new tariffs with little warning, and an inbound shipment can be detained just as fast. Companies no longer get credit for a supplier code of conduct that lives just on paper; they need to understand and document what is actually happening inside the supply chain.

Section 301: Scope and what it means for global sourcing

Section 301(b) of the Trade Act of 1974 authorizes USTR to take action against foreign practices that burden US commerce. In March 2026, the USTR investigated 60 major US trading partners to see if they adequately enforce bans on forced labor imports. The answer for all of them was no.

USTR has proposed two additional tariff tiers stacked on top of existing duties:

• 10% tariff: Applied to markets with a forced labor ban on paper but ineffective enforcement (such as Canada, Mexico, and the European Union), or those with reciprocal trade commitments. 
• 12.5% tariff: Applied to all other investigated economies deemed to be lacking effective forced labor import prohibitions (such as China and Japan). 

For US importers, these country-wide tariffs blanket entire categories of goods, escalating baseline operating costs regardless of internal supplier standards. 

While the Section 301 investigations and tariffs are still in the public hearing phase, Antoine Heuty, SVP Human Rights at EcoVadis, has flagged a key challenge related to how the process is playing out. “A company with years of worker engagement, supply chain mapping, and functioning grievance systems faces the same commercial consequence as one that has done nothing – which raises an obvious question about what behavior the policy is actually incentivizing.” 

Although Section 301 is poised to apply blanket tariffs at the country level, Section 307 and the new CBP guidance target individual shipments. This is where evaluating and tracking supplier performance on labor and human rights pays off. Under Section 307, if you cannot prove a shipment is free of forced labor, CBP will detain your cargo, driving up costs and locking your goods out of the US entirely.

Section 307 and the CBP Guidance

Section 307 of the Tariff Act of 1930 bans imports made with forced labor. CBP enforces this by issuing Withhold Release Orders to detain shipments or Forced Labor Findings to seize them, shifting the burden of proof directly to the importer. 

CBP recently consolidated its separate forced labor frameworks – including Section 307, the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, and CAATSA – into a single Forced Labor Enforcement Operational Guidance for Importers. Companies must now navigate one unified playbook instead of three separate rulebooks. 

The guidance raises the standard of proof. CBP states plainly that generic financial or social audits do not satisfy this standard unless they specifically examine the International Labour Organization’s (ILO) 11 forced labor indicators. CBP’s evidentiary bar rests on all indicators, but basic supplier questionnaires or desk audits typically miss five worker-experienced conditions in particular: 

• Recruitment under deception
• Debt bondage
• Retention of identity documents
• Withholding of wages
• Restriction of movement

These conditions are rarely captured in a basic questionnaire. A company has to know what workers are experiencing on site, not what a supplier has documented about itself. Even scheduled audits routinely miss these risks because suppliers get advance notice and auditors only see one day at one location.

The stakes are high: under the UFLPA alone, CBP has reviewed more than 18,000 shipments worth an estimated $3.8 billion since mid-2022. In 2025, the agency stopped roughly 7,325 shipments (a 50% year-over-year increase) and released just 6.5% of them into the US. Once CBP stops a shipment, getting it released is the rare exception.

Because the countries under active investigation account for nearly all US trade, moving sourcing from one to another rarely moves a company out of scope. To effectively defend against detentions, companies should identify, mitigate, monitor, and document forced labor risks before shipments leave the dock.

Where to start: Mapping, documenting, listening

Beyond the guidance, regulators won’t hand you a checklist on how to move forward. You’ll have to proactively build an ongoing, defensible case for your supply chain to prepare for USTR or CBP demands. This can be done in three stages:

1) Mapping forced labor exposure

Investigating hundreds or thousands of global suppliers with the same urgency is impossible. You need a way to evaluate supplier risks at scale so you can focus your due diligence efforts. EcoVadis IQ Plus maps supplier exposure across high-risk sectors and geographies, cross-referencing them against the USTR Section 301 country list. From there, you can prioritize which suppliers need deeper engagement now and identify backup suppliers in other countries in case tariff tiers continue to evolve.

2) Documenting engagement

Knowing where the forced labor risks in your supply chain are is only half the battle – you must also prove you’re acting on them. EcoVadis Ratings provide verified assessments of suppliers’ labor and human rights practices, scored against the same ILO indicators found in CBP’s guidance. For broader supplier coverage, Vitals extends baseline visibility across your Tier 1 suppliers, helping you establish the systematic record of “reasonable care” CBP reviews when a shipment is detained. 

3) Listening to workers in real time

Generic questionnaires only show what a supplier reveals about itself. Worker Voice Survey collects anonymous, direct input from workers on recruitment, debt, document retention, wages, and movement. Meanwhile, Worker Voice Connect keeps an open, continuous grievance channel so personnel can report issues immediately. Both tools complement the ILO-indicator audit called for in CBP’s guidance, providing early-warning signals and filling visibility gaps between traditional audit cycles.

Building your defense 

The EcoVadis platform helps you build a systematic record of your Tier 1 due diligence efforts and progress. However, it can’t trace raw materials like cotton or cobalt back to the source. If you’re navigating active enforcement in one of these critical categories, you’ll also need a dedicated traceability tool to support your EcoVadis record.

Tariff tiers may change by the July 24 deadline, and CBP will likely keep refining how it enforces this guidance. But tackling forced labor risks in your supply chain shouldn’t hinge on regulatory certainty. Start or accelerate your due diligence efforts now, so you can provide evidence to USTR or CBP when they ask for it. 

Talk to an EcoVadis expert to learn more about how our solutions support human rights due diligence.