Of more than 5,000 shipments stopped by CBP under the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, CBP has finished its analysis on about 4,600. And for nearly half, or 47%, importers were able to prove there was no link to Xinjiang in their supply chains, said Brian Hoxie, director of CBP's forced labor division.
The European Parliament's Internal Market and International Trade committees adopted a draft regulation that would provide a framework for investigating the use of forced labor in global supply chains and bans all goods using forced labor, the parliament announced. If the investigation of a company reveals the use of forced labor, the European Parliament said, "all import and export of the related goods would be halted at the EU's borders and companies would also have to withdraw goods that have already reached the EU market." Goods that had reached the market would be "donated, recycled or destroyed."
The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act is one of the most powerful laws, "in what it's been able to achieve in such a short time," said Howard Mendelsohn, chief client officer for Kharon, a risk intelligence service provider. It was implemented so quickly that almost $2 billion worth of imports has been detained, at least temporarily.
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A nonprofit organization that fights illicit networks that threaten global peace and security, C4ADS, is recommending that the Department of Homeland Security’s interagency Forced Labor Enforcement Task Force should place Xinjiang Nonferrous Metal Industry Group and its subsidiaries on the UFLPA entity list, as the group laid out evidence that the mines use labor transfers of Turkic minorities in Xinjiang province.
House Select Committee on China Chairman Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., and ranking member Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Ill., led a bipartisan letter signed by a dozen other House members asking National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Administrator Richard Spinrad to "strongly consider enforcing trade restrictions against the PRC on specific seafood products tainted by forced labor," such as tuna and squid. China's government has the right to 90 days of consultations on the issue before the administration imposes trade restrictions.
Trade lawyers and importers are wondering how the anti-stockpiling element of a two-year pause on trade remedy circumvention deposits will be enforced.
Major Chinese seafood processing plants are employing Uyghurs that have forcibly been shipped in from Xinjiang, and imports from those plants are likely entering U.S. supply chains, according to a report from the Outlaw Ocean Project that was also published in The New Yorker on Oct. 9. Citing internal company newsletters, local news reports and posts from Uyghur workers on social media, among other things, the report tied use of Uyghur forced labor to processors in China's Shandong province, including Chishan Group, Yantai Sanko Fisheries and Yantai Longwin Foods, as well as Shandong Haidu and Rongcheng Haibo, which together handle 30% of all squid processed in China.
Recent additions to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act Entity List (see 2309250033) mark a change in that they include companies that have not previously been on government denied party lists, and the range of commodities being looked at for forced labor violations is being expanded, Ethan Woolley of compliance risk advisory firm Kharon said during a recent webinar.
Companies should review existing and prospective agreements for potential liability under China's anti-foreign sanctions law, Evan Chuck of Crowell & Moring advised during a Practising Law Institute webinar on Sept. 26.