British online fashion retailer Boohoo is being investigated by CBP after the agency was sent a petition from a British lawyer claiming not enough is being done to curb forced labor practices at the retailer's factories in Leicester, according to a March 2 report from Sky News. The report says CBP is considering the petition, but that Boohoo has not been notified of any ongoing investigation into its supply chain. The clothing retailer claims that United Kingdom investigators have found no evidence of forced labor in its supply chain. British anti-slavery lawyer Duncan Jepson has requested two bans, issued via withhold release order, on Boohoo and most of its suppliers, and received confirmation from CBP that enough evidence is available to begin an investigation, the report said.
Todd Owen, former executive assistant CBP commissioner who worked in the Office of Field Operations before retiring, said during a March 3 webinar that the trade community should expect to see a lot more traditional customs work over the next few years, such as missed descriptions, undervaluation, duty evasion and import safety. Owen, who is a senior trade adviser at Diaz Trade Law, also said during the webinar that he thinks stopping goods made with forced labor is going to continue to be a priority for the Biden administration. “I don’t see this going away,” he said.
Sime Darby Plantation Berhad (SDP), Malaysia's largest producer of palm oil, has created an Expert Stakeholder Human Rights Assessment Commission to identify forced labor issues in its supply chains, according to a March 1 news release. The move comes after CBP imposed a withhold release order on SDP's palm oil on Dec. 30 over evidence that the products were being made with forced labor (see 2012300007). SDP has appointed ethical trade consultancy Impactt Limited to lead the commission in evaluating SDP's labor practices in Malaysia. According to the release, the commission will also be made up of a stakeholder consultation panel that will provide additional input to supplement Impactt's assessment methodology.
The Biden administration is emphasizing the need to fight forced labor and exploitative labor conditions, as well as using trade to fight climate change, in the first Trade Agenda published since President Joe Biden took office.
The issuance of CBP withhold release orders is not always seen as helpful in other parts of the federal government, the Government Accountability Office said in a report released on March 1. The full report includes some criticism from within the government as being too heavy-handed at times. “For example, although State [Department] officials considered WROs to be helpful in raising awareness of forced labor issues, State officials also said that the issuance of WROs can be a 'sledgehammer-type' approach that may make it more difficult for other agencies, such as State and [the Department of Labor], to implement more collaborative or remediation-focused approaches to eliminate and prevent forced labor,” it said.
Reps. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., and Chris Smith, R-N.J., led the reintroduction of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which would create a rebuttable presumption that goods made in China's Xinjiang region are made with forced labor, and therefore banned from entry. Five other House members -- three Democrats and two Republicans -- also sponsored. In the news release announcing the Feb. 18 reintroduction, McGovern said, “We have watched in horror as the Chinese government first created, and then expanded a system of extrajudicial mass internment camps targeting Uyghurs and Muslim minorities.” The bill passed the House in the last Congress 406-3. This is a companion to the Senate bill introduced in January (see 2101290045).
Sen. Tom Cotton, one of the most prominent China hawks in Congress, thinks that the Bureau of Industry and Security is buried within an organization “hostile to the aggressive use of export controls,” and so it should be moved from the Commerce Department to the State Department, because, he says, that department puts national security first. Cotton, who has published a lengthy report on what he calls the economic long war with China, discussed his views during an online program at the Reagan Presidential Foundation on Feb. 18.
The Commercial Customs Operations Advisory Committee (COAC) for CBP will next meet remotely on March 17, CBP said in a notice. Comments are due in writing by March 16.
Many expect trade policy under the Biden administration to be more worker-focused than consumer-focused, but many specifics remain undecided. “The jury is still out on what that pro-worker trade policy will look like in practice,” said Joshua Boswell, a lawyer at Crowell & Moring. Boswell spoke to a webinar audience Feb. 17 on the 2021 trade outlook and said such predictions don't tell you much about tariffs, free trade negotiations or trade remedies in and of themselves.
Board members and people who provide services to foreign-trade zones talked about what the National Association of Foreign-Trade Zones should work on now that it lost the battle on USMCA rules of origin treatment for goods produced in those zones. “Now that provision’s back in the act, it’s going to be a real challenge,” said Melissa Irmen, chair of the NAFTZ board. The group wants to make sure a U.S.-United Kingdom free trade agreement doesn't prohibit goods made in FTZs from qualifying for rules of origin, as USMCA does. “They are concerned that the USMCA approach could be a precedent.”