The Morning Risk Report: Trump Unveils New Tariffs Designed to Withstand Legal Scrutiny By Richard Vanderford | Dow Jones Risk Journal

Good morning. The U.S. will impose tariffs ranging from 10% to 12.5% on its major trading partners as part of a new set of duties that the Trump administration says are designed to combat forced labor.

Meet the new tariffs: The new duties, announced by U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer's office on Thursday, are meant to replace Trump's temporary 10% global tariff, which expires early Friday. Trump put that temporary tariff in place in February, after the Supreme Court struck down most of his global tariffs.

Durable duties? The new levies are based on a frequently used section of trade law-Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974-that is considered more legally durable than the basis for the tariffs the Supreme Court struck down. Once in place, the levies can remain indefinitely and be unilaterally altered by the president.

Forced-labor fight: Progress in combating forced labor, such as passing laws prohibiting the importation of goods made with it, could help countries move from a 12.5% tariff to 10%, a senior administration official told reporters Thursday. It remains unclear, however, if any nation could convince the Trump administration to move its forced labor tariffs to zero. The U.S. doesn't currently view any nation in the investigation as sufficiently enforcing its labor protections, even if it has laws on the books, but the official said the administration would continue to monitor the issue. Risk Journal Podcast

As fighting spreads and the Strait of Hormuz remains under threat, Washington faces questions over whether military pressure, diplomacy or both can still shape the outcome. Also, Jerry Perullo of Adversarial Risk Management on how a test of powerful frontier models at OpenAI went horribly wrong.

You can listen to new episodes every Friday on Apple Podcasts , Spotify

and Amazon .

Compliance

EU fines Google $1 billion for favoring its own services.

The European Union fined Alphabet's Google $1 billion for breaching its digital competition rules

in a case that risks aggravating tensions with the Trump administration as it prepares new global tariffs.

The European Commission-the EU's executive arm-said Thursday that Google unfairly favored its own services on its widely used search engine and that the company imposed restrictions on app developers, preventing them from freely steering users to other offers outside of the company's Play Store.

House lawmakers introduce bipartisan AI 'kill switch' bill following OpenAI cyber incident.

Two members of Congress have introduced bipartisan legislation that would require developers of the most advanced artificial-intelligence systems to maintain the ability to slow down, suspend or shut down their models

if they pose serious risks.

The AI Kill Switch Act would give the Homeland Security Department authority to order companies to take emergency action against AI systems that could cause catastrophic harm, in consultation with the Commerce secretary and the director of national intelligence.

Merging companies will get a shortcut to ending antitrust investigations

under a Justice Department change meant to make the government review process less burdensome for businesses.

Risk Journal reports that U.S. law enforcement arrested more than 670 suspects on human trafficking charges

in connection with the World Cup, a crackdown following a push by the Trump administration to lean on banks to combat the crime (free link). Risk

Companies are trading away tariff refund rights.

Faced with prolonged tariff uncertainty, some companies are cashing in .

Sporting goods chain Academy Sports & Outdoors last year sold its rights to tariff refunds, joining companies including the Children's Place and GoPro in trading away potential payouts for immediate cash, to manage debt or for other capital planning. Some offloaded their claims before the Supreme Court struck down global tariffs this year to escape the limbo of when or if any money would arrive. Others benefited from holding out: Price tags on certain refund claims have more than quadrupled since the ruling.

Trump's minerals strategy likely to reshape defense supply chains.

President Trump's executive order limiting the use of waivers for military contractors sourcing critical minerals from other countries is likely to reshape defense industry supply chains but will be difficult to enforce, analysts told Risk Journal

(free link).

Trump signed a decree Monday stating that critical minerals must be sourced from nations allied to the U.S., and limiting the use of waivers for defense contractors that acquire the minerals from rival countries, such as China. It also called on companies to map their supply chains in an effort to identify security risks.

The move is likely to have a significant effect on defense companies and their supply chains, analysts said. "This is about more than 'Buy American'," said Beatrice Mosello, senior research fellow at Chatham House's environment and society center. "The emphasis is on domestic and trusted allied sources, reflecting a strategy of reducing dependence on geopolitical rivals while building resilient allied supply chains."

President Trump said the U.S. would hold Iran responsible

for future attacks by Houthi militants after the group fired on two Saudi tankers in the Red Sea, sending oil prices skyrocketing.

The U.S. Food and Drug and Administration said it is investigating an additional cyclospora outbreak

that the agency said has sickened at least 72 people.

Ukraine's long-range drone strikes have brought the war home

to Russia's urban middle class, most recently with attacks on logistics hubs for the country's biggest e-commerce company, a homegrown version of Amazon.com. What Else Matters One of the busiest ports in the U.S. is looking to go nuclear .

Satellite images show Iran is rebuilding . Fast.

One of the looming worries about artificial intelligence is that it will automate away jobs. A report from researchers at Google released Thursday says that, so far, the technology is mainly being used as an aid to workers .

President Trump's Truth Social is selling stock market traders superfast access to his posts on the platform. Wall Street was already in on that game .

The Justice Department on Thursday said it would withdraw subpoenas

related to several New York Times reporters' recent articles. About Us

Follow us on LinkedIn . Send tips to our reporters Max Fillion at [max.fillion@dowjones.com], Clara Hudson at [clara.hudson@wsj.com], Yusuf Khan at [yusuf.khan@wsj.com] and Richard Vanderford at [richard.vanderford@wsj.com].

You can also reach us by replying to any newsletter, or by emailing our editors Perry Cleveland-Peck at and David Smagalla at [david.smagalla@wsj.com].

This article is a text version of a Wall Street Journal newsletter published earlier today.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

July 24, 2026 07:07 ET (11:07 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2026 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.