The US is proposing tariffs of at least 10% on imports from most major trading partners, following an investigation into goods allegedly produced by forced labor, according to a Bloomberg report posted on June 3, 2026. The move is the administration's route to rebuild the sweeping tariff wall that the US Supreme Court struck down earlier this year.
Crypto did not wait for the details. Bitcoin fell 6.4% over 24 hours to about $66,380 as of June 3, 2026, while global equity indices pushed to fresh records, a split that puts crypto squarely back in the role of the market's marginal risk asset.
A tariff wall rebuilt on a forced-labor finding
The legal framing is the part that matters here. The earlier round of broad tariffs was knocked down in court, so the new proposal leans on a forced-labor investigation as its statutory basis rather than the emergency powers that failed to survive review. A 10% figure is presented as a floor, not a ceiling, applied across most major trading partners rather than a single country or sector.
That design choice signals durability. A tariff regime built on a specific trade-law finding is harder to unwind than one resting on contested emergency authority, which means importers and the markets that price them have to treat this as a structural cost rather than a passing threat. Bloomberg's report is the primary source on the proposal itself; the policy text and any country-by-country schedule were not public at the time of writing.
Crypto wears the risk-off move
Equities and crypto told opposite stories on the day. CoinDesk reported Bitcoin sliding below $66,000 even as global stocks and AI-linked trades hit fresh records, the kind of divergence that usually shows up when leveraged crypto positions get flushed faster than slower institutional equity flows react.
The numbers across the major assets, as of June 3, 2026:
- Bitcoin: about $66,380, down 6.4% on the day and 11.8% on the week
- Ether: about $1,840, down 8.1% on the day
- Solana: about $73.43, down 9.0% on the day
- BNB: about $634, down 7.8% on the day
- XRP: about $1.21, down 6.0% on the day
The Fear and Greed Index sat at 25, in Fear territory. Tariffs are inflationary at the margin, and inflation that arrives through import prices is the kind central banks tend to answer with tighter policy, not looser. Higher-for-longer rates pull liquidity away from the assets furthest out on the risk curve, and crypto sits at the end of that curve. The same selloff is covered in more detail in our piece on the BTC drop to $67K while stocks climbed.
Dollar stablecoins as the emerging-market hedge
The second-order effect runs through the dollar. Emerging-market central banks are already raising rates faster than their developed-world peers to contain imported inflation, and a fresh US tariff layer adds to that pressure. For households in those economies, the practical response is often to hold dollars, and increasingly that means dollar stablecoins like USDC and USDT rather than physical notes or a local bank account.
This is the thread that ties a trade-policy headline back to everyday crypto spending. In markets such as Argentina, where currency stress is a recurring fact of life, stablecoins already function as a savings and payment layer, and crypto cards let users spend that balance without a manual conversion at every purchase. A tariff-driven inflation scare in the US does not change that mechanic, but it tends to widen the audience for it.
For now the proposal is exactly that, a proposal, with the schedule and legal challenges still ahead. The market reaction, by contrast, is already on the tape. Anyone weighing crypto card options as a way to hold and spend dollar stablecoins should treat counterparty exposure as the live question: a custodial balance is only as safe as the issuer behind it, while a self-custodial setup keeps the keys with the user.
Overview
The US is proposing tariffs of at least 10% on imports from most major trading partners, using a forced-labor investigation to rebuild the tariff wall the Supreme Court struck down. Crypto sold off the same day, with Bitcoin down 6.4% to roughly $66,380 as global stocks set records, and Fear and Greed at 25. The clearest crypto channel is dollar demand: tariff-driven inflation pressure tends to push emerging-market savers toward dollar stablecoins, the same balances crypto cards are built to spend.
