WASHINGTON — The White House Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy on Thursday accused more than 40 countries of helping China route roughly $75 billion in goods a year through their territories to escape U.S. tariffs, in a 25-page report that pegged the drain on the Treasury at $19 billion to $26 billion annually and put the American job cost at some 450,000.

The report, titled "The Great Transshipment Scam," landed the same week that President Trump signed a proclamation imposing a 100 percent tariff on the largest and most capable imported drones, and the U.S. Court of International Trade upheld his closure of the de minimis exemption for parcels under $800. Together the three actions redraw where the White House can collect duties and how quickly it can act.

The transshipment charge

The report names Mexico, Canada, the European Union, India, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Vietnam among nations posing a high risk of facilitating the practice, and Fox News reported the list also includes Panama, Colombia, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Peru, Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic. Chinese exporters, the White House said, disguise a product's origin by relabeling, repackaging or performing limited assembly in an intermediary country before shipping it to the United States, allowing the goods to qualify for lower tariff rates.

"Every dollar lost to this Great Transshipment Scam is a dollar stolen from American workers, manufacturers, and taxpayers," the trade office said, according to Al Jazeera. Peter Navarro, the White House trade adviser who leads the office, said U.S. Customs and Border Protection is deploying artificial-intelligence prototypes to flag suspect shipments, and the administration said importers caught falsifying product origins face retroactive tariffs stretching back roughly one year. "The age of untraceable illegal transshipment is over," the White House said.

Drones at 100 percent

Trump's proclamation imposed a 100 percent ad valorem tariff on drones with a maximum takeoff weight above 25 kilograms and on drones with thermal-imaging capability — categories the administration described as "particularly sensitive for national security purposes." Smaller drones face a 25 percent duty. Allied producers were carved out at lower rates: 15 percent on drones and components from the European Union, Japan, Liechtenstein, South Korea, Switzerland and Taiwan, and 10 percent on the United Kingdom.

The tariffs take effect in 21 days. Duties on less-sensitive components begin in 180 days, and drones cleared by the Department of Defense through Federal Communications Commission processes receive an additional 180-day extension. The White House said the country is "too reliant on foreign sources of unmanned aircraft systems and their components." Shares of a small U.S. drone maker linked to Donald Trump Jr. rose sharply on the announcement, France 24 reported.

Court closes a loophole

The Court of International Trade this week upheld the president's authority under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to eliminate the de minimis exemption, which had allowed parcels valued under $800 to enter the country duty-free. At its peak the exemption handled more than 1 billion low-value shipments a year, most from China. Retailers and shipping-industry groups had challenged the closure, arguing it would raise consumer prices and disrupt small-business supply chains, The Hill reported. The three-judge panel disagreed. The ruling clears one of the last legal challenges to Trump's tariff overhaul after a June decision struck down other pieces of the "Liberation Day" program.

Counterpoint

Amitendu Palit, a trade professor, characterized the transshipment report as part of a broader push to pressure other countries into granting the United States greater market access, coming after the earlier court ruling that invalidated portions of the Liberation Day tariffs, Al Jazeera reported. The countries the White House named as high-risk enablers include most of the treaty allies whose cooperation the administration is simultaneously courting in trade talks.

What's next

Chinese President Xi Jinping is scheduled to visit Washington in September.