The United States has accused Canada, Mexico, India and 37 other countries of aiding China’s evasion of President Donald Trump’s tariffs, saying this has resulted in the loss of billions of dollars in tariff revenue.

The White House said in a report titled “The Great Transhipment Scam” released on Thursday that the countries, which have lower tariffs, facilitate the movement of Chinese products into the United States through illegal networks.

It said the products are relabelled, repackaged, and re-invoiced, with false claims about their origin used to avoid higher tariffs that would apply if the true source were disclosed.

“Every year, the United States loses tens of billions of dollars to the illegal transshipment of goods from higher-tariff countries through more than 40 lower-tariff jurisdictions before those goods enter the American market,” it said. “Historically, much of this activity has involved Chinese-origin goods.”

The Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy said in the report that “China’s biggest enablers range from Mexico and Canada on U.S. land borders to the European Union, India, Japan, and South Korea”. It also identified Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam as playing “important roles” in the shadow networks.

It identified Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Kenya, Morocco, Kazakhstan, Jordan, and the United Arab Emirates.

It said that although these countries do not handle the largest dollar volumes, China-linked exporters are drawn to them for a range of advantages, including cheap labour, permissive free-trade-zone rules, weak customs enforcement, and strategic port access.

The report said five estimates from government and private-sector sources were reviewed, indicating that between $40 billion and $303 billion in goods were moved annually through the countries.

According to the report, U.S. manufacturers of electrical equipment, electronics, plastics, aluminium products, and motor components are among those most affected by transhipment.

“Every dollar lost to this Great Transshipment Scam is a dollar stolen from American workers, manufacturers, and taxpayers,” the office headed by Peter Navarro said in the report.

The countries have yet to respond to the allegations.

The trade office said the countries had been “put on notice” and that it was deploying artificial intelligence to identify participants in transshipment schemes and verify suspicious trade flows.

“The message to the world is simple. The age of untraceable illegal transshipment is over,” the trade office said. “What once seemed like quiet paperwork manoeuvres—relabelling, repackaging, and re-invoicing—has become a matter of economic sovereignty and national will.”

During Mr Trump’s first administration, the U.S. imposed Section 301 tariffs—adding a 25 per cent duty—on Chinese imports in July 2018. Following this, the U.S.-China trade deficit fell in 2019 and 2020.

Since returning to office last year, Mr Trump has imposed sweeping tariffs on economies, claiming that they have taken advantage of the American economy.

Recently, he imposed new tariffs on goods from 59 countries, including Nigeria, and the European Union over their alleged failure “to impose a legal prohibition on the importation of goods produced wholly or in part with forced labour and to effectively enforce such a prohibition”.