The Right to an Adequate Standard of Living in the Context of the 2025 US Global Trade Wars

Abstract

This article examines the impact of the new US trade policy architecture in 2025 on social and economic human rights, in particular the human right to an adequate standard of living. It highlights the existing internal conflict between the logic of protectionism and the positive obligations of the state to preserve the material basis for a decent standard of living, non-discrimination against vulnerable groups of the population, and adherence to the principle of gradual realisation of rights without neglecting their minimum essential core. The analytical framework of the article integrates a law enforcement approach with economic modelling. This allows tracking the channels of price transfer from customs policy to final prices for consumer goods through imported components, logistics costs and trade mark-ups. It is shown that the accumulation of tariff impulses in conditions of increased control over small parcel traffic and limited competition in certain market sectors escalates the likelihood of a regressive distribution of the burden and creates real problems in access to basic goods for low-income households.

The need to comply with the criteria of legitimacy and proportionality for such measures is justified: clear time limits and reversibility, the obligation to prove the necessity of such measures, extraterritorial caution regarding the accompanying effects on third countries, as well as the availability of guarantees for the prompt review of such measures. It is proposed to operationalise monitoring by comparing commodity codes with specific items in the consumer basket in order to continuously track incidence by population categories according to wealth, including the identification of essential items. A range of corrective mechanisms has been outlined that have the potential to neutralise price transfer chains without harming policy objectives: exemptions for certain categories of goods, quotas for critical goods, compensation for low-income households, allocation of additional customs revenues to maintain the availability of essential consumer goods, and simplification of procedures in the postal and courier channel. It was concluded that these conditions must be met in order to avoid direct violations of the human and civil right to an adequate standard of living.