“So this (investigation under Section 301 of the US Trade Act 1974) is really a mechanism being created, given their (the US) constraints that the Congress is not going to support any of their actions (on reciprocal tariffs)”, the Union commerce minister Piyush Goyal thundered.“They are trying to create a competitive edge for India. So I don’t think (we need to) worry about Section 301, we will tackle it, it is our responsibility.”The confidence is unmistakable. The contradiction is even more glaring.Goyal’s remarks come in the wake of Washington’s announcement on the likely imposition of unilateral tariffs of 12.5% and 10% on scores of countries, citing their failure to impose and effectively enforce prohibitions on imports of goods produced with forced labour.Yet what is remarkable is not merely the proposed tariffs, but New Delhi’s willingness to rationalise a mechanism that India itself once denounced as a frontal assault on the multilateral trading system.Unwittingly, Goyal appears oblivious of the stand taken by the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government against Section 301 in 2000. India then joined the broader challenge to Washington’s unilateral trade actions in a dispute launched by the European Union, arguing that the United States was reneging on the very multilateral commitments it had helped construct.India’s critique was neither tentative nor ambiguous. It offered a detailed legal and systemic indictment of Section 301, arguing that countries had every reason to oppose it because of its grotesque violation of multilateral trade rules.India advanced four reasons (World Trade Organisation (WTO) panel report, pages 265-268).“Firstly, it is clear that Sections 301-310 are a case of United States reneging on its commitments undertaken in the Uruguay Round” that led to the creation of the WTO in 1995.“Secondly, regardless of whether or not it is applied in practice, GATT/WTO jurisprudence is that a law, which, by its terms mandates behaviour that is inconsistent with a WTO provision, does violate that provision.”“Thirdly, Sections 301-310 fall foul of Article 23 of the DSU (dispute settlement understanding); specifically, they also contravene the time limits and other procedures of the DSU.”“Fourthly, Sections 301-310 violate Articles I, II, III, VIII and XI of GATT 1994 as evidenced in the Bananas dispute.”These were not the words of critics on the margins or anti-globalisation protestors. They were the considered legal arguments of the Government of India.“For the above reasons,” India requested “the Panel to find that Sections 301-310 are violative of the DSU, GATT 1994 and the WTO Agreement and to recommend that the DSB request the United States to bring its Trade Act of 1974 into conformity with its obligations under the WTO Agreements.”The question therefore is unavoidable: what exactly has changed?The legal deficiencies of Section 301 have not disappeared. What has changed is India’s political posture. The degree of sovereign decision-making in global trade issues by New Delhi appears increasingly subordinated to the imperatives of strategic alignment with Washington.While countries such as Brazil are openly questioning what amounts to an illegal unilateral measure, India finds itself explaining it away. This is particularly striking when India currently chairs BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), a grouping originally conceived to challenge the dominance of Western-led institutions and defend a more equitable international order. Little wonder that BRICS is increasingly and subtly referred to as Brazil, Russia, Iran and China, with India appearing conspicuously absent from the collective pushback against unilateralism.Forced labour as a trade pretextThe latest American initiative rests on a deeply questionable premise.The move to impose tariffs based on countries’ failure to comply with the International Labour Organisation’s (ILO) convention on forced labour appears to violate multilateral trade rules, since trade and labour obligations are not part of the WTO rulebook.The irony is difficult to ignore.The United States has ratified only two of the ILO’s core labour standards – forced labour and child labour – while leaving unratified other conventions, including: 1) Freedom of Association; 2) Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining; 3) Minimum Age of Employment; 4) Equal Remuneration; and 5) Discrimination in Employment and Occupation.Moreover, attempts to incorporate trade and labour provisions into the WTO rulebook failed at the WTO’s Third Ministerial Conference in Seattle in December 1999.The latest US announcement comes just months before the Section 122 tariffs of 15% on a large swathe of countries are due to expire on July 24 because of the 150-day statutory limit.Nor is this the first attempt to use labour issues as a trade weapon. Forced labour was repeatedly raised by the United States during the WTO fisheries subsidies negotiations in the run-up to the WTO’s 12th Ministerial Conference – allegedly to target China – but the proposal failed to secure agreement.Even more significant is the WTO panel’s finding in the European Union dispute concerning Section 301. While the panel stopped short of striking down the measure outright, it attached a crucial warning:“Significantly, all these conclusions are based in full or in part on the US Administration’s undertakings mentioned above. It thus follows that should they be repudiated or in any other way removed by the US Administration or another branch of the US Government, the findings of conformity contained in these conclusions would no longer be warranted.”That caveat now hangs heavily over Washington’s latest actions.The weaponisation of section 301The legal record since then has only strengthened concerns about Section 301.In September 2020, a WTO dispute panel ruled on a complaint brought by China against US tariffs imposed under Section 301 concerning China’s acts, policies and practices related to technology transfer, intellectual property and innovation.The panel (WT/DS543/R) found that “the challenged measures are prima facie inconsistent with Articles I:1 [Most-Favoured-Nation treatment or non-discrimination], II:1 [sanctity of scheduled tariff commitments] and II:1(b) of the GATT 1994.”The panel requested the United States to “bring its measures into conformity with its obligations under the GATT 1994.”Washington’s response was revealing. Rather than comply, it appealed the ruling to a dysfunctional Appellate Body in early 2021, effectively neutralising the decision.Against this backdrop, the latest spate of Section 301 actions against countries – including on issues beyond the WTO’s remit, such as forced labour – amounts to a systematic erosion of international trade rules. The rules-based system is being displaced by a system in which power dictates outcomes.Or, as Harvard academic Stephen Walt recently described, the conduct resembles that of a “predatory hegemon.”A flawed justificationThe official rationale from Washington is familiar. The US Trade Representative ambassador Jamison Greer, who is apparently going to visit India soon, stated that “the failure of our most important trading partners to address the imposition of goods made with forced labour is unacceptable.”“This creates a dynamic where American workers are forced to compete globally on an unlevel playing field.”The proposed action would be taken under Section 301 and includes “additional duties on all products of the investigated economies,” subject to certain exceptions.Greer defended Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, as amended, arguing that it “is designed to address unfair foreign acts, policies, or practices affecting US commerce.”But the glaring question remains unanswered: who will address the unfair acts, policies and practices arising from Washington’s own asymmetrical exercise of economic power?Who disciplines the country that reserves for itself powers it denies to others?And why is India – once among the strongest defenders of multilateral trade disciplines – now among the countries seeking to justify a mechanism it previously condemned as incompatible with those very disciplines?If countries like India defend what they once characterised as an outright illegal act of the United States, it raises troubling questions about the direction of Indian trade policy. The issue is no longer simply Section 301. It is whether the Modi government still views India as an autonomous actor in the global trading system or whether it is increasingly content to function as a client state of a predatory hegemon.Ravi Kanth Devarakonda is a financial journalist based in Switzerland.