Lobbying disclosure reports show a lot of corporate interest in the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act. The National Retail Federation, the Retail Industry Leaders Association, the American Apparel and Footwear Association, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Plumbing Manufacturers International, and many companies, including Nike, Apple, Engie North America, Kraft Heinz, Campbell Soup and VF have been lobbying on the bill, which passed the House almost unanimously and is awaiting a Senate vote. The law would create a presumption that any goods from China's Xinjiang province were made with forced labor. The AFL-CIO and the American Foundry Society also have been lobbying on the bill.
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The Commercial Customs Operations Advisory Committee (COAC) for CBP will next meet remotely on Dec. 16, CBP said in a notice. Comments are due in writing by Dec. 15.
Kelley Drye hired John Foote, previously with Baker McKenzie, as a partner in the International Trade practice group, the law firm said in a Nov. 19 news release. Foote's “practice includes customs and international trade policy, compliance and enforcement, with a particular focus on developing internal compliance programs targeting forced labor in supply chains,” Kelley Drye said.
Steptoe & Johnson trade lawyers say that although President-elect Joe Biden will be interested in repairing strained relationships with the European Union, and will be less inclined to use unconventional trade tools like Section 232 and the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, the trend of policymakers pushing reshoring and decoupling won't abate.
A withhold release order aimed at goods from China's Xinjiang region wouldn't go far enough in the fight against forced labor, the Coalition for a Prosperous America said in a Nov. 9 letter to Sens. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, and Ron Wyden, D-Ore. CBP should instead hit all of China with a WRO, the CPA said. CBP is considering a regional WRO (see 2009140040), which was in itself already seen by some industries as major and potentially onerous action. A “country wide-WRO is the only approach to stopping forced labor,” the trade group said.
International Trade Today is providing readers with the top stories from Oct. 26-30 in case they were missed. All articles can be found by searching on the titles or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.
Senate Finance Committee Democrats, including the ranking member, are urging U.S. Chamber of Commerce members “to take immediate action to ensure goods manufactured for them are not complicit in the China’s state-directed human rights abuses, including by relocating production” from Xinjiang province. In an Oct. 27 letter, Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, and Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said multinational companies need to be part of the solution in eradicating forced labor in China. “We will continue to push Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to investigate and issue region-wide Withhold Release Orders (WROs) for all products known to be produced in the [Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region of China] and to implement a comprehensive response to the Chinese government’s violation of human rights,” they said.
CBP is working on a response to the proposal that goods under withhold release orders could be held in foreign-trade zones before the final determination on its status, attendees at the National Association of Foreign-Trade Zones virtual conference learned Oct. 27. But Jim Swanson, CBP director-cargo and conveyance security and controls, said “there are issues with that” idea, or else it probably would have been done already.
International Trade Today is providing readers with the top stories from Oct. 19-23 in case they were missed. All articles can be found by searching on the titles or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.
CBP’s forced labor operations are being undermined by staff shortages that have resulted in investigations being suspended or not conducted at all, as well as a failure by CBP to conduct reviews of withhold release orders unless prodded by importers, the Government Accountability Office said in a report issued Oct. 27.