The top trade officials in the U.S., Canada and Mexico gathered virtually to celebrate the one-year anniversary of USMCA, which is July 1, with Canadian and Mexican ministers emphasizing the worth of integrated supply chains and U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai emphasizing the elements of USMCA that protect workers in the region and around the world. Tai said at a Wilson Center program June 30, "A good next step in this increased cooperation can be on the issue of forced labor. The USMCA includes a strong obligation to prohibit the importation of goods produced with forced labor. Working together to address this critical economic and moral issue would send a powerful message to the world."
The ongoing northern border travel ban seems to be leading to a growth in drug seizures found within cargo shipments, said Manuel Garza, Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism program director in CBP's Office of Field Operations. “On a normal given year, I could probably count five seizures on the northern border with drugs,” he told the American Association of Exporters and Importers conference June 29. “This past year during COVID, we're probably up to 100, if not more than that,” he said.
International Trade Today is providing readers with the top stories from June 21-25 in case they were missed. All articles can be found by searching on the titles or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.
CBP detained 636 shipments between Oct. 1, 2020, and June 15, 2021, due to the possible use of forced labor on the goods, the agency said in recently updated trade statistics. That marks an increase of 265 stopped shipments from the previous release of statistics, when CBP said it detained 371 shipments between Oct. 1, 2020, and March 31, 2021 (see 2104160010). The total value of the detained shipments for this fiscal year so far is about $86 million, it said.
Although CBP was not able to meet its goal of adding forced labor to the Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism program in 2020, as it had planned (see 2007130041), the agency is trying to do so before Sept. 30 this year, according to Valarie Neuhart, CBP deputy executive director in the office of trade relations. Neuhart, who was speaking to a supply chain meeting on June 24, also said the agency will host industry days on the topic of forced labor the week of June 28 to allow people to see demonstrations of technologies that can trace products' country of origin, or can help firms trace goods through complex supply chains.
This year's version of the Senate Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, harmonized with the House version, passed the Senate Foreign Relations Committee June 24 by a unanimous voice vote. The bill, sponsored by Sens. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., would create a rebuttable presumption that all goods produced in China's Xinjiang region were made with forced labor. Before the vote, Rubio said that there are 1,500 companies located in or near more than 100 mass detention facilities. "This is slavery. As simple as that. American companies argue that their supply chains are clean. What this bill says is: 'Prove it. Especially if it's coming out of Xinjiang.'" Rubio said he expects it will be impossible to prove there's no forced labor involved in the goods in most cases.
International Trade Today is providing readers with the top stories from June 14-18 in case they were missed. All articles can be found by searching on the titles or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.
A withhold release order on silicon produced by Hoshine Silicon Industry Co., Ltd., a company located in China's Xinjiang province, and its subsidiaries, was based on credible reports that workers were subject to intimidation and threats, and that they had their movements restricted, the acting CBP commissioner said during a press conference June 24. The material produced by Hoshine is a primary input in solar panels.
CBP will be detaining silica-based products made by Hoshine Silicon Industry Co., Ltd. and its subsidiaries under a new withhold release order, the White House announced June 24. The agency said there is information that indicates that Hoshine used forced labor in manufacturing these products. The polysilicon produced in the Xinjiang region of China is a core material in solar panels made in Asia.
Former Acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan, testifying at a Senate Homeland Security subcommittee hearing, said that in order to implement more withhold release orders, the Department of Homeland Security needs more resources to do investigations in the foreign countries where forced labor is alleged.