Section 122 tariff expiry marks a reset, not an end to US trade uncertainty, says GlobalData
The 10% Section 122 tariffs that have underpinned US trade policy since February 2026 are scheduled to expire on 24 July. The Office of the US Trade Representative has indicated that a new round of tariffs covering up to 60 trading partners could follow within days. Tariff levels have risen at each stage since early 2025, and this deadline does not, on its own, change that trajectory. The expiry is unlikely to reduce overall trade uncertainty, says GlobalData, a leading intelligence and productivity platform.
The pattern follows a legal, not just political, mechanism. Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 limits any single tariff action to 150 days, which is why the current rate expires this week. Options available to the administration include a Congressional extension or reliance on separate statutes such as Section 301 or Section 232, which already apply to steel, aluminum, and potentially pharmaceuticals.
Ramnivas Mundada, director of Economic Research and Companies at GlobalData, comments: “Each legal or diplomatic development this year has changed the mechanism behind US tariffs rather than the overall direction. The expiry of Section 122 looks likely to follow the same pattern.”
China’s rare-earth magnet exports to the US remained about 20% below pre-2025 levels in H1 2026, according to data from China Customs. Despite an October 2025 trade truce easing bilateral tariffs, shipments have not fully recovered, suggesting that China’s separate export licensing controls, rather than tariff levels, continue to constrain supply. This leaves US industries reliant on these magnets exposed to ongoing shortages and supply chain uncertainty.
Many finance and supply chain functions have moved to treating current tariff rates as provisional rather than fixed, maintaining cost models that are refreshed monthly and sourcing contracts with more built-in flexibility. Procurement teams are also increasingly distinguishing between product-specific tariffs, such as those on steel and aluminum, and country-wide measures such as the Section 122 baseline, since the two follow different legal triggers and timelines.
The Section 301 investigation into Germany, a close US ally, illustrates that sector-specific tariff actions are not limited to countries with strained diplomatic relationships.
Mundada concludes: “The pattern across 2025 and 2026 is that the specific tariff rate matters less than the fact that it keeps changing, often through mechanisms that are difficult to anticipate from outside government.”