Section 31 tariffs are meant to be a scalpel, not a sledgehammer 

Congress never intended for Section 301 of the 1974 Trade Act to be a general tariff statute. It wrote the statute as a targeted trade remedy. That distinction matters. In fact, it’s at the heart of the latest lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s Section 301 tariffs.  

The case, brought by the Liberty Justice Center, nominally concerns tariffs on imports from 60 economies for their alleged failures to combat forced labor. But the bigger question is whether Section 301 remains a targeted trade remedy, or whether it’s been transformed into a general source of presidential tariff authority?

The statute itself provides the answer. 

Section 301 establishes a clear statutory chain. The U.S. Trade Representative must identify a particular foreign “act, policy, or practice,” determine that it burdens or restricts U.S. commerce and explain why the chosen response is an “appropriate and feasible” means of securing the elimination of the practice. 

That sequence is not a procedural formality. It is the statute’s limiting principle. 

Congress designed Section 301 as targeted economic diplomacy. Tariffs are not the objective; they are the instrument. Their purpose is to induce a foreign government to abandon a particular practice.

The stronger the connection between the identified practice and the chosen remedy, the more faithfully the executive is carrying out Congress’s design. The latest litigation argues that the connection has broken down. 

No one disputes that forced labor is a grave human rights abuse. The question before the court of International Trade is whether nearly uniform tariffs imposed on substantially all........

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