Former U.S. trade representative Robert Lighthizer, who got the most attention from members of a House select committee at a lengthy hearing on Chinese economic aggression, argued that the actions President Donald Trump took to discourage imports from China were not nearly enough, and that even removing China from most favored nation status would not be enough to protect American manufacturers from China's predation, because some of the Column 2 tariffs, such as those on cars, are not high enough. Ending China's MFN status "would be one of the greatest things you could possibly do for American manufacturing," he declared.
CBP released two guidance documents May 16 on the information that should be included in allegations of forced labor in U.S.-bound supply chains filed through CBP’s e-allegations system, as well as how to compile supporting documentation for both allegations and requests to modify Withhold Release Orders and forced labor findings. The latter guidance document has instructions on how to organize supporting documents, preserve open-source documents, preserve time and date information and submit documents in languages other than English, among other things.
CBP’s approach to enforcing the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act has been “especially damaging” to small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) forced to confront “nearly impossible” supply chain documentation requirements and that lack the ability to easily restructure their supply chains, a customs lawyer said in a recent post on the China Law Blog.
Ahead of a Senate Finance Committee International Trade Subcommittee hearing on how to encourage more integration of the U.S. and the Central and South American economies, 38 House members, from both parties, wrote Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, asking that she not make it easier for apparel manufacturers to win exceptions to the Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement's yarn-forward rules of origin.
Products tainted by Uyghur forced labor include a "vast array" of agricultural products, raw materials and manufactured goods and are not just limited to the few industries CBP has specifically targeted, according to a report from Sheffield Hallam University released May 15. While tomatoes, cotton and polysilicon do have a large market share of goods produced through forced labor, China's extensive production of raw materials, agricultural products, and manufacturing products means that many industries have some sort of tie to the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR).
The chairman of the powerful House Rules Committee used his perch to promote a bill he sponsored that would allow the president to lower duties on non-import-sensitive goods made by a country that lost exports due to coercive actions; increase duties on imports from the "foreign adversary" committing the coercion; and allow the U.S. to more easily facilitate trade, including exports, with the coerced parties (see 2302230021).
Federal agencies led by the DHS' Homeland Security Investigations unit carried out a court-authorized search on May 8 of a JinkoSloar plant in Jacksonville, Florida, an FBI spokesperson confirmed to International Trade Today.
CBP is delaying its planned automation of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act detention process, according to the agency’s most recent ACE development and deployment schedule, released May 9. An entry in the schedule for “Automation of CBP Form 6051D for Detentions of Cargo Filed in ACE,” including UFLPA detentions, is now listed as having a deployment date of "TBD," after having been projected for deployment in May in CBP's prior ACE schedules. CBP has said the capability, which would “create an automated process for Admissibility Reviews and Exception Requests,” would be deployed May 20 (see 2304210072). CBP did not immediately comment.
The inability of CBP to stop all goods made with Uyghur forced labor was one of the focuses of a trade hearing hosted on Staten Island by the House Ways and Means Committee, and when committee Chairman Jason Smith, R-Mo., asked a witness what more could be done to crack down, Uyghur activist Nury Turkel said the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act should be expanded to cover all of China.
Kharon, a company that provides intelligence to help companies with global compliance issues, says that caustic soda, commonly known as lye, is being produced by a state-owned company in Xinjiang, and is being sold to Vietnamese fabric manufacturers and electronics manufacturers, and is even being sold to U.S. cleaning products manufacturers.