Can Section 301’s forced-labor tariffs be challenged? Here’s the legal landscape.

If you’re looking at the new Section 301 forced-labor tariffs and wondering whether they can be challenged, the honest answer is: probably, but nobody knows yet how far that challenge would get. A Congressional Research Service legal analysis published July 21 lays out where the open questions are — and why Section 301 tariffs may actually be more vulnerable to a successful challenge than the Section 122 or Section 338 tariffs that have been in the news the same week.

Section 122 and Section 338 authorize the President to impose tariffs. Section 301 authorizes USTR — an agency. That distinction matters more than it sounds: agency actions get reviewed under the Administrative Procedure Act’s “arbitrary and capricious” / “substantial evidence” standard, while presidential tariff actions have traditionally gotten a more deferential look from courts. If you’re an importer sizing up which of the tariffs hitting your entries this year is most likely to face a real legal setback, Section 301 is the one where courts have the most latitude to second-guess the agency’s work.

First: is the underlying conduct actually “unreasonable” under the statute? Section 301 defines unreasonable conduct to include a “persistent pattern” that “permits” forced labor — but no court has ruled on whether a country simply failing to enforce an existing ban meets that bar, or what “persistent” even means in this context.

Second: does the sheer scale of this action trigger the “major questions doctrine” — the principle that agencies need clear, specific congressional authorization before taking action of major economic or political significance? Section 301 has historically targeted one country at a time. This action reaches roughly 60 countries responsible for over 99% of U.S. imports. Whether that scale alone invites stricter judicial scrutiny is untested.

Third: did USTR do its homework? Courts can examine whether the agency’s investigation adequately supports its country-by-country findings and whether it meaningfully responded to public comments — particularly given the accelerated timeline these investigations ran on. Precedent suggests that even where a court finds gaps, it’s more likely to send USTR back to shore up its reasoning than to strike the tariffs down outright — so a successful legal challenge might mean delay, not necessarily reversal.

These questions stopped being hypothetical fast — and it’s no longer just one case. Three separate lawsuits are now working through this territory from different angles: two private suits filed July 24 (the same day the new duties took effect), and a 25-state coalition suit filed a week and a half later, all in the U.S. Court of International Trade.

The first, Burlap and Barrel, Inc. v. Greer, was filed by the Liberty Justice Center on behalf of two small importers — a spice company and a watch retailer/distributor — as a proposed class action covering every importer paying the new duties. Beyond the administrative-record and major-questions arguments above, the complaint adds a sharper claim: that the Section 301 rates “closely track” the rate structure of the Section 122 tariffs courts already struck down, and that USTR set the rates before it finished the investigation, assembling the supporting record afterward — in the Liberty Justice Center’s words, a “predetermined global tariff policy” moved from one statute to another rather than a genuine country-by-country remedy. Relief sought: class certification, an injunction blocking enforcement, and refunds with interest.

The second suit was filed the same day by Learning Resources and hand2mind — the toy companies that led the successful Supreme Court challenge to the IEEPA tariffs — joined by several other businesses, seven plaintiffs in total (case no. 1:26-cv-03347). It isn’t a class action, and its framing is more direct: this is the administration’s third attempt to impose “essentially the same set of sweeping global tariffs,” with the forced-labor rationale layered on as a pretext. The complaint highlights that USTR ran 60 nominally separate investigations in roughly two and a half months — compare that to the seven months it took to complete a single Section 301 investigation of China in 2017 — and argues USTR leaned on generalized conclusions rather than economy-specific evidence.

The third suit came from a different kind of plaintiff entirely: on August 3, a coalition of 25 states — co-led by the attorneys general of Arizona, California, and Oregon, joined by Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin — filed their own complaint in the CIT. The states lean on the same “pretext” theory as the private suits, but with a specific evidentiary hook: statements from USTR Ambassador Greer and Treasury Secretary Bessent, made before the investigation concluded, that the tariffs would continue at the same rates regardless of outcome. The states argue that undercuts any claim the rates were genuinely tied to country-by-country forced-labor findings. They’re asking the court to declare the tariffs unlawful, halt collection, and order refunds.

Worth noting: Liberty Justice Center already won the IEEPA case at the Supreme Court in February and the Section 122 case at the CIT in May — the two rulings that pushed the administration toward Section 301 and Section 338 in the first place. The Learning Resources plaintiffs are that same IEEPA case’s veterans, taking a second swing under a new statute. The state coalition adds a third angle entirely — sovereign plaintiffs with standing arguments the private suits don’t have. Three different plaintiffs, three different procedural postures, one shared argument: that Section 301 is being stretched to reach a result Congress never authorized at this scale. Nothing changes for importers’ duties today — they remain in effect and payable while all three cases proceed — but this now has real momentum as the case (or cases) to watch.

None of this is a reason to assume the tariffs go away, or a reason to assume they’re locked in. It’s a reason to treat “legal challenge” as a live, unresolved variable — one with genuinely different odds than the Section 122 or Section 338 tariffs already in effect. If a meaningful share of your landed cost now rides on the Section 301 forced-labor tariffs, that’s worth tracking alongside the usual classification and origin work, not instead of it.

Sources: Congressional Research Service — Legal Authority for Section 301 Tariffs to Address Forced Labor and Excess Manufacturing Capacity (LSB11460) (July 21, 2026); Liberty Justice Center — Liberty Justice Center Files First Lawsuit Challenging Trump’s Massive New Section 301 Tariffs (July 24, 2026); Liberty Justice Center — Case page: Burlap and Barrel, Inc. and Collective Horology, LLC v. Greer; Liberty Justice Center — Liberty Justice Center Challenges Unlawful Section 301 Tariffs as Administration Replaces Expiring Section 122 Tariffs; STR Trade Report — “Section 301 Forced Labor Tariffs Challenged in New Lawsuits” (July 2026 issue); Learning Resources, et al. v. Greer, et al. — Complaint, U.S. Court of International Trade, case no. 1:26-cv-03347 (July 24, 2026); Supply Chain Dive — Trump’s Section 301 tariffs face lawsuit seeking removal, refunds; Manufacturing Dive — 25 states sue Trump over Section 301 forced-labor tariffs (August 4, 2026); California Department of Justice — Attorney General Bonta Sues Trump Administration for a Third Time over Its Illegal Tariffs (August 3, 2026).

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