Many companies may not have insight into where their raw materials come from, said Wiley lawyers while speaking on a webinar about preparing for the enforcement of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act. But doing the best they can to eradicate any links to the Xinjiang province in China is needed to lower the risk that goods could be detained under suspicion of forced labor, given that imports with links to Xinjiang will be assumed to be made with forced labor, starting in June.
U.S. allegations of forced labor in Xinjiang are the “lie of the century,” perpetuated by the Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC), a group that is “biased” against Beijing and has “no political credibility at all,” a Chinese Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesperson said Jan. 13, according to an English translation of a transcript of a regular press conference. Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., and Reps. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., and Chris Smith, R-N.J., all members of the CECC, wrote International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach Jan. 12 seeking “assurances” that the cotton that Chinese sportswear companies Anta Sports and Hengyuanxiang Group source from Xinjiang was produced free of human rights violations. Since cotton made in Xinjiang is “synonymous with forced labor and the systematic repression that takes place there,” there exists the “worrisome possibility that IOC personnel or others attending the 2022 Olympic Games will be wearing clothing contaminated by forced labor,” they said. The IOC didn’t respond to emailed requests for comment.
House Ways and Means Trade Subcommittee Chairman Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., joined by 14 Democrats on the committee, is asking that the Biden administration develop an action plan to improve the working conditions of Haitian migrant workers in the sugar industry in the Dominican Republic, including potentially banning the import of that sugar under the ban on goods made with forced labor.
The top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee and that committee's chairman, as well as the top Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee, urged the deputy U.S. trade representative to press Mexico and Canada on market access issues for the energy and agricultural sectors, and the senators also complained about barriers for the telecom, pharmaceutical and television industries in either Mexico or Canada. Deputy USTR Jayme White is meeting with Canadian and Mexican counterparts this week.
In its annual State of American Business, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce chose to emphasize the need to double the level of legal immigration, its opposition to Build Back Better legislation and what it sees as overly aggressive antitrust enforcement over the need to remove tariffs on hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of Chinese imports. Three years ago, the Chamber was arguing that the tariffs needed to go (see 1901100007), but last year, admitted it was not politically feasible as it laid out its trade agenda (see 2101130057).
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Importers are concerned that they will face a higher likelihood of goods being detained over the suspicion of forced labor come June without having the benefit of government advice on effective due diligence and supply chain tracing. But even that advice may not be enough of a roadmap for companies to be sure they can escape the rebuttable presumption that the item they are importing that could have inputs linked to Uyghur labor or Xinjiang production should be barred from entry into the United States, said Ted Murphy, a partner at Sidley Austin.
CBP detained a total of 912 shipments between Oct. 1, 2021, and Dec. 31, 2021 over the possible use of forced labor on the goods, the agency said in recently updated trade statistics for fiscal year 2022. The agency didn't reach a similar number of detentions until August last year (see 2108300032) and reported 90 detained shipments during the same period of FY21 (see 2101290050). The total value of the detained shipments for this current fiscal year so far is about $185.9 million, it said.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations said Intel was wrong to remove a phrase from its supplier letters that told them they should not source goods or labor from China's Xinjiang province. The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act says that any goods made with Uyghur labor outside Xinjiang, or made in Xinjiang, would be presumed to be made with forced labor, and therefore barred from entry into the U.S. CAIR Deputy Executive Director Edward Ahmed Mitchell said, "Once again, an American corporation has showed extreme cowardice by bowing to the sensitivities of the Chinese Communist Party, which is perpetrating a genocide against Uyghur Muslims. By removing language that explicitly prohibits the sourcing of goods from the Uyghur region of China, Intel is enabling the Chinese governments' efforts to profit from forced labor and bully the world into silence."
CBP detained a total of 1,469 shipments during fiscal year 2021, due to the possible use of forced labor on the goods, the agency said in an update on FY21 statistics. The agency also "processed approximately $2.8 trillion of imports, an increase of nearly 17 percent compared to the same period in Fiscal Year 2020," it said. "Overall, CBP collected approximately $93.8 billion in duties, taxes, and other fees on behalf of the U.S. government in FY2021, representing a 133% increase over a five-year period." CBP collected $74.4 billion in FY20.