A bill that would reverse permanent normal trade relations with China was introduced by Sens. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., and Rick Scott, R-Fla., on March 17. It would require annual presidential approval for most favored nation status, but also would rewrite the Jackson-Vanik Amendment to say countries with trade abuses and human rights abuses would not be permitted to have MFN status. “For twenty years, China has held permanent most-favored-nation status, which has supercharged the loss of American manufacturing jobs. It’s time to protect American jobs and hold the Chinese Communist Party accountable for their forced labor camps and egregious human rights violations,” Cotton said in a press release.
International Trade Today is providing readers with the top stories from March 15-19 in case they were missed. All articles can be found by searching on the titles or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.
The Commercial Customs Operations Advisory Committee's Forced Labor Working Group's recommendations seem to be “of a piece of a general overall attitude by U.S. importers to try and ride out the current widespread public outrage,” the Southern Shrimp Alliance said in a March 22 letter to CBP's Office of Trade Forced Labor Division Director Therese Randazzo. The SSA said “each of these recommendations appears designed to complicate and further limit the agency’s ability to effectively enforce” Section 1307 of the U.S. Code. The COAC approved the recommendations for submission to CBP at a March 17 meeting (see 2103160027).
U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai opened her first full week on the job with a series of video calls with major allies and trading partners -- Canada, the United Kingdom, the European Union -- and diplomatic summaries of the calls from both sides mostly echoed each other, suggesting there was a good deal of agreement.
The Senate and House versions of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act have diverged fairly substantially and the law seems likely to ultimately be closer to the Senate approach, said Ray Bucheger, a lobbyist at FBB Federal Relations. The House bill is more punitive, including a requirement for CBP to name and shame importers whose goods are detained. The Senate bill requires public comment and a public hearing open to importers before establishing a strategy to prevent the importation of goods made with forced labor. Part of that process is expected to produce guidance to importers, and there will still be a rebuttable presumption that goods from China's Xinjiang region were made with forced labor, but if importers implemented the guidance, that would change the burden of proof, according to Bucheger.
The chairman and the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee said they want to work together on improving enforcement of America's ban on the importation of goods made with forced labor, with Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, saying, “I'm glad this is an issue we both care deeply about.” They spoke at the beginning of a two-hour hearing on fighting forced labor March 18. Crapo said that Congress should pass the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which would create a rebuttable assumption that goods made in Xinjiang were made with forced labor. Committee Chairman Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said CBP needs more resources to enforce the ban. Crapo also said CBP regulation must provide thoughtful guidance “so Americans know how to avoid importing these goods.”
Malaysian palm oil exporter Sime Darby Plantation Berhad moved to dismiss a lawsuit against Duncan Jepson, managing director of the nongovernmental organization Liberty Shared, because the underlying investigation by the Securities Commission of Malaysia was dropped, in a March 16 filing with the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. Sime Darby had sought to force Jepson to disclose information relevant to forced labor allegations Jepson filed with the Securities Commission in connection with the investigation (see 2103120040). The U.S. still has a withhold release order in place on the company's palm oil.
The Coalition for a Prosperous America is asking CBP to reject four recommendations from the Commercial Customs Operations Advisory Committee's Forced Labor Working Group (see 2103160027). CPA says that the working group's advice to take a multi-agency approach on enforcing the ban on imports made with forced labor would limit enforcement actions. It says that asking the government to do more to help industry to minimize forced labor in supply chains “has it completely backwards, and shifts responsibility away from culpable parties.”
International Trade Today is providing readers with the top stories from March 8-12 in case they were missed. All articles can be found by searching on the titles or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.
CBP is planning to add forced labor to its list of “Priority Trade Issues,” said the Commercial Customs Operations Advisory Committee (COAC) Forced Labor Working Group within a set of recommendations released ahead of the March 17 meeting. The agency briefed the working group on “on its intent to proceed with establishing Forced Labor as a Priority Trade Issue,” it said in the recommendations.