A White House report says tens of billions of dollars in revenue is lost annually due to transshipment.
Published August 14, 2026
President Donald Trump’s administration has accused dozens of countries of illegally helping China evade U.S. tariffs and depriving national treasuries of tens of billions of dollars in annual revenue.
More than 40 countries participate in a shadow logistics network that facilitates the flow of Chinese goods into the United States with false labels, the White House said in a report released Thursday.
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The biggest perpetrators of China’s “Great Transshipment Scam” include the European Union, Mexico, Canada, India, Japan and South Korea, the Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy said in a report.
The Department of Trade Policy said Southeast Asian countries, including Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia and Cambodia, also play a “key role” in the network.
The U.S. manufacturing industries hardest hit by transshipments include electrical equipment, integrated circuits, aluminum products and motor parts, according to the report.
“Every dollar lost in this massive transshipment scam is a dollar stolen from American workers, manufacturers, and taxpayers,” the office, headed by President Trump appointee Peter Navarro, said in a report.
The Chinese embassy in Washington, D.C., did not immediately respond to a request for comment outside of normal business hours.
The dozens of countries named in the report have yet to publicly respond to the allegations.
The White House warned that countries facilitating transshipments were on “alert” and said border officials were leveraging artificial intelligence to integrate shipping data and other information as part of increased enforcement efforts.
“Our message to the world is simple: the days of untraceable illegal transshipments are over,” the trade bureau said.
“Relabelling, repackaging, and rebilling—tasks that once seemed like menial administrative procedures have become a matter of economic sovereignty and national will.”
Since returning to the White House in January last year, President Trump has shaken up global trade with a number of protectionist trade policies.
In the latest trade salvo, the Trump administration announced tariffs of 10% to 12.5% on imports from dozens of countries accused of turning a blind eye to forced labor.
A group of 25 Democratic-led U.S. states, including New York, California and Colorado, challenged the tariffs in court, arguing the measure was a pretext to reimpose President Trump’s sweeping “Emancipation Day” mandate, which the U.S. Supreme Court struck down in February.
Amitendu Palit, a trade expert and professor at the National University of Singapore, said the White House report was the latest effort by the Trump administration to force countries to accept greater market access to American products.
“The outlawing of the Liberation Day tariffs meant a huge loss for the Trump administration, both in terms of the refunds it had to pay and in terms of credibility,” Palit told Al Jazeera.
“China is therefore seeking increasingly ‘innovative’ forms of weaponizing market access. This follows previous Section 301 tariffs imposed on countries for failing to limit the use of forced labor.”
