After getting data on 86 garments tested by CBP between December 2022 and May 2023, Reuters determined that 13 of the items, or 15% of the total, showed they contained cotton grown in Xinjiang, and therefore are banned from entry to the U.S.
Contractual language against forced labor may not be enough to meet increasing supply chain due diligence regulations, particularly as the EU implements its corporate sustainability due diligence directive (see 2202230073 and 2306010022), Ernst & Young advisers said this week. Although there is still debate about how broadly the bloc’s new rules will be scoped, the advisers warned companies against blinding themselves to rising government expectations.
Four witnesses asked Congress to pass Level the Playing Field Act 2.0, a proposal that would change trade remedy laws in favor of domestic manufacturers, at a House hearing called the "Chinese Communist Party Threat to American Manufacturing."
CBP now plans on deploying its automation of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act detention process in January, according to the agency’s most recent ACE development and deployment schedule, released Aug. 30. The entry for “Automation of CBP Form 6051D for Detentions of Cargo Filed in ACE, including Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) Detentions” had previously been listed with a deployment date as TBD, after CBP delayed the deployment this past May (see 2305090071). CBP has said the capability would create an automated process for UFLPA admissibility reviews and exception requests.
Market and geopolitical risk analysts said everything has gone wrong, undermining supply chain reliability over the last several years, and businesses are creating redundancy but are still anxious about the additional costs that entails.
The Commercial Customs Operations Advisory Committee (COAC) for CBP will next meet remotely Sept. 20, CBP said in a notice. Comments are due in writing by Sept. 15.
Sixteen state attorneys general are asking the Security and Exchange Commission to block the listing of SHEIN -- or any other foreign-owned firm -- on a U.S. stock exchange unless a "truly independent" certification can be made that the company does not export goods made with forced labor.
The Forced Labor Enforcement Task Force (FLETF) should "exercise restraint" in putting entities on the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act Entity List and focus only on companies that are "clearly implicated" in the use of forced labor, international trade lawyer John Foote said in a blog post Aug. 28.The blog post focuses on Ninestar Corporation's case against FLETF and the potential impact of being included on the Entity List (see 2308230016).
The Forced Labor Enforcement Task Force (FLETF) violated the Administrative Procedure Act by failing to provide any rationale for adding Chinese printer cartridge manufacturer Ninestar Corp., along with eight of its Zhuhai-based subsidiaries, to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) Entity List, the companies, led by Ninestar, argued (Ninestar Corp., et al. v. U.S., CIT # 23-00182).
Canadian mining company GobiMin is "pleased" that the Canadian Ombudsperson for Responsible Enterprise (CORE) has "declined to pursue an investigation of GobiMin’s activities and that it recognized that GobiMin engaged in good faith with the CORE’s initial assessment," a company spokesperson said in an Aug. 22 email.