Lawyers at Miller & Chevalier noted that the first two months of 2024 saw 30% more shipments stopped for suspicion of links to Uyghur forced labor than in the same period a year ago -- and that the value of those detentions tripled.
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PHILADELPHIA -- CBP has not issued any withhold release orders for goods unrelated to Uyghur forced labor since the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act passed in late 2021. Eric Choy, the CBP official whose office oversees the ban on goods made with forced labor, said that targeting forced labor abuses outside of China "is something that we're definitely reprioritizing resources [for], to focus in on those efforts." Choy, who is executive director of Trade Remedy Law Enforcement Directorate, said in an interview during the CBP Trade Facilitation and Cargo Security Summit last week that he expects there will be a WRO announced before October.
PHILADELPHIA -- CBP officials who clear or reject packages from importers seeking to show there is no Uyghur labor anywhere in the supply chain of a detained product said it's not enough to assemble a paper trail of every transaction and vendor from raw material to finished good.
PHILADELPHIA -- With the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act's second anniversary coming up in June, DHS will be releasing a new implementation strategy -- including adding new priority sectors, beyond cotton, tomatoes and polysilicon, the material integral to solar panels.
CBP in February identified 540 shipments valued at more than $306 million for further examination based on the suspected use of forced labor, including goods subject to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act and withhold release orders, the agency said in its most recent operational statistics update. The number and value of those shipments is up from January, when CBP identified 424 shipments worth more than $236 million (see 2402130070). Also in February, CBP seized 1,645 shipments that contained counterfeit goods valued at more than $345 million if the items had been genuine, the agency said.
CBP is asking solar companies about their corporate structure, overall supply chain, entries, accounting and financial practices, production, sales and sales and production reconciliations, law firm Morgan Lewis said in a March 13 blog post. The agency began sending the questionnaires in February to solar companies asking how they're guarding against the use of forced labor in their supply chains with the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act top of mind for the agency (see 2402270061).
International Trade Commissioners grappled with how they should fulfill the administration's request for a report on the export competitiveness of the Bangladeshi, Indian, Cambodian, Indonesian and Pakistani apparel sectors over the last 11 years -- is it to uncover how those countries' successes could offer lessons to other developing countries that want to industrialize? Is the success of Bangladesh, which is near to crossing the threshold into a middle-income country largely on the strength of its garment sector, a country with an "unnatural and unfair advantage," because of its suppression of unions and wages, as the AFL-CIO's Eric Gottwald asserted?
The Wall Street Journal reported that a LAN transformer that allows cars to communicate to networks, made by Sichuan Jingweida Technology, was the reason Audis and Porsches couldn't enter the U.S. until that part was replaced. That firm is on the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act's entity list.
A bipartisan bill has been introduced that would set country-by-country de minimis levels, instruct the administration to reconsider U.S. tariffs "with the focus on the principle of reciprocity" for most favored nation rates, and open a dialogue with Mexico and Canada on allowing Costa Rica and Uruguay to join USMCA.