The Senate and House versions of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act have diverged fairly substantially and the law seems likely to ultimately be closer to the Senate approach, said Ray Bucheger, a lobbyist at FBB Federal Relations. The House bill is more punitive, including a requirement for CBP to name and shame importers whose goods are detained. The Senate bill requires public comment and a public hearing open to importers before establishing a strategy to prevent the importation of goods made with forced labor. Part of that process is expected to produce guidance to importers, and there will still be a rebuttable presumption that goods from China's Xinjiang region were made with forced labor, but if importers implemented the guidance, that would change the burden of proof, according to Bucheger.
The chairman and the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee said they want to work together on improving enforcement of America's ban on the importation of goods made with forced labor, with Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, saying, “I'm glad this is an issue we both care deeply about.” They spoke at the beginning of a two-hour hearing on fighting forced labor March 18. Crapo said that Congress should pass the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which would create a rebuttable assumption that goods made in Xinjiang were made with forced labor. Committee Chairman Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said CBP needs more resources to enforce the ban. Crapo also said CBP regulation must provide thoughtful guidance “so Americans know how to avoid importing these goods.”
Therese Randazzo, director of the forced labor division in the trade remedy and law enforcement directorate at CBP, said that although there have been far more withhold release orders than findings since legislation eliminated a forced labor loophole in 2015, the trade community should expect to see more findings in the future. Randazzo, who was speaking on a panel on forced labor at the annual Georgetown Law International Trade Update on March 11, declined to comment on whether CBP has opened an investigation into forced labor in polysilicon from China (see 2101080044). That's an input for solar panels, and about two-thirds of the world's solar panels are made in China.
The U.S Commission on International Religious Freedom, an advisory committee to Congress, heard from four witnesses that passing the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act is the most important thing the U.S. could do to convince companies that sell in the U.S. to exit China's Xinjiang region. One witness, from the Heritage Foundation, said a better first step would be a two-year region-wide withhold release order, which would give CBP time to gather more convincing evidence about the scope of forced labor in the western Chinese province.
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.
Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, a co-sponsor of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, told International Trade Today that he doesn't expect the Senate to vote on the bill as part of the year-end legislative package.
The head of the House Ways and Means Committee, along with the chairman and a senior member of the Trade Subcommittee, said Dec. 3 that they “have deep concerns about CBP’s ability” to effectively enforce a withhold release order on cotton produced by the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (see 2012030021). As evidence, they cited a recent Government Accountability Office report on CBP enforcement of imports of goods made with forced labor that was not publicly released.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations issued a press release Dec. 1 asking people to call their members of Congress to argue against watering down the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (see 2011300034). The group was responding to a report in The New York Times that business interests, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Nike and Apple, are asking Congress to weaken the bill, which would prohibit imports of many products made by Uighur Muslims in China's Xinjiang province in an effort to halt the use of forced labor and other human rights abuses.
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.