US Senate Passes Bill to Ban All Products from
China's Xinjiang, Genocide Enacted on Muslims
· HOR and White House OK Required for Enacting Law
·
Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention
Act
The U.S.
Senate passed legislation on Wednesday to ban the import of products from
China's Xinjiang region, the latest effort in Washington to punish Beijing for
what U.S. officials say is an ongoing genocide against Uyghurs and other Muslim
groups.
The
Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act would create a "rebuttable
presumption" assuming goods manufactured in Xinjiang are made with forced
labor and therefore banned under the 1930 Tariff Act, unless otherwise
certified by U.S. authorities.
Passed by
unanimous consent, the bipartisan measure would shift the burden of proof to
importers. The current rule bans goods if there is reasonable evidence of
forced labor.
The bill
must also pass the House of Representatives before it can be sent to the White
House for President Joe Biden to sign into law. It was not immediately clear
when that might take place.
Republican
Senator Marco Rubio, who introduced the legislation with Democrat Jeff Merkley, called on the House to act quickly.
"We
will not turn a blind eye to the CCP's ongoing crimes against humanity, and we
will not allow corporations a free pass to profit from those horrific
abuses," Rubio said in a statement.
"No
American corporation should profit from these abuses. No American consumers
should be inadvertently purchasing products from slave labor," Merkley said.
Democratic
and Republican aides said they expected the measure would get strong support in
the House, noting the House approved a
similar measure nearly unanimously last year.
The bill
would go beyond steps already taken to secure U.S. supply chains in the face of
allegations of rights abuses in China, including existing bans on Xinjiang
tomatoes, cotton and some solar products.
The Biden
administration has increased sanctions, and on Tuesday issued an
advisory warning businesses they could be in violation of U.S. law if
operations are linked even indirectly to surveillance networks in Xinjiang.
Rights groups, researchers, former residents and
some Western lawmakers and officials say Xinjiang authorities have facilitated
forced labor by detaining around a million Uyghurs and other primarily Muslim
minorities since 2016.
USTR Joins Other
Federal Agencies in Issuing Updated Xinjiang Supply Chain Business Advisory
The Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR)
on 13 July, 2021 joined the U.S. Departments of State, Treasury, Commerce, Homeland
Security, and Labor in issuing an updated
advisory for U.S. businesses whose supply
chains run through Xinjiang, China, where the government of the People’s
Republic of China (PRC) and associated enterprises continue to subject Uyghurs and other ethnic and religious
minorities to forced labor.
The advisory calls urgent attention to U.S. businesses’ supply
chain risks and identifies serious investing and sourcing considerations for businesses
and individuals with exposure to entities engaged in forced labor and other human
rights abuses linked to Xinjiang. The advisory
also describes U.S. government actions taken to date to counter the use of forced
labor in Xinjiang and to prohibit the importation of goods produced in whole or
in part with forced labor or convict labor.
“Today’s
action demonstrates the Biden-Harris Administration’s commitment to ending forced
labor around the world, especially in global supply chains,” said Ambassador Katherine
Tai. “Whether through the World Trade Organization negotiations on fishing subsidies
and the use of forced labor on fishing vessels, or calling out state-sponsored forced
labor, our worker-centered trade policy will champion workers’ rights and address
unfair competition, especially when it is based on human exploitation.
“I want
to commend our allies for sending a clear sign that there is no place for forced
labor in a fair, rules-based international trading system. This includes Canada
and Mexico, who have committed to ban the import of goods made with forced labor
through the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement.
The European Union also shares
our concerns and today issued its own business guidance on how
to help counter forced labor in global supply chains.”
Globally,
the International Labor Organization estimates that there are 25 million workers,
adults and children, in forced labor on any given day. According to the U.S. Departments
of State and Labor, several studies have documented more than one million Uyghurs,
ethnic Kazakhs, and other Muslim minorities have been unjustly imprisoned in internment
camps within the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. These studies also show that at least one hundred
thousand workers have been subjected to forced labor in factories in industrial
areas where the camps are located, or have been transferred out of Xinjiang to factories
in other parts of China.
G7 Leaders
meeting at Cornwall, England, recently tasked the G7 Trade Ministers to identify
areas for strengthened cooperation and collective efforts towards eradicating all
forms of forced labor in global supply chains, ahead of the G7 Trade Ministers'
meeting in October 2021. The United States
will continue to play a leadership role in eradicating forced labor, including in
Xinjiang, and pursue a trade agenda that protects workers from abuse and exploitation.
On July 13, 2021, the U.S. Department of State, alongside
the U.S. Department of the Treasury, the U.S. Department of Commerce, the U.S. Department
of Homeland Security, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, and the U.S.
Department of Labor issued an updated Xinjiang Supply Chain Business Advisory to
highlight the heightened risks for businesses with supply chain and investment links
to Xinjiang, given the entities complicit in forced labor and other human rights
abuses there and throughout China. This updates the original Xinjiang Supply Chain
Business Advisory issued by U.S. government agencies on July 1, 2020.
The People’s Republic of China (PRC) government continues
its horrific abuses in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (Xinjiang) and elsewhere
in China, targeting Uyghurs, ethnic Kazakhs, and ethnic Kyrgyz who are predominantly
Muslim, and members of other ethnic and religious minority groups. These abuses include widespread, state-sponsored
forced labor and intrusive surveillance, forced population control measures and
separation of children from families, mass detention, and other human rights abuses
amidst ongoing genocide and crimes against humanity. Given the severity and extent of these abuses,
businesses and individuals that do not exit supply chains, ventures, and/or investments
connected to Xinjiang could run a high risk of violating U.S. law.
The updated advisory
highlights:
·
Information related
to widespread, state-sponsored forced labor and intrusive surveillance in and related
to Xinjiang;
·
Information related
to the various kinds of risks and potential exposure to state-sponsored forced labor
and human rights abuses related to Xinjiang;
·
The U.S. Department
of State Guidance on Implementing the “UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human
Rights” for Transactions Linked to Foreign Government End-Users for Products or
Services with Surveillance Capabilities;
·
Information for investors
in PRC companies linked to surveillance in Xinjiang;
·
Information on due
diligence related to banking, financial institutions and other investors;
·
Information from the
Office of the U.S. Trade Representative and the U.S. Department of Labor;
·
Updated information
about U.S. government actions taken in response to human rights abuses in and in
connection to Xinjiang, including but not limited to the issuance of Withhold Release
Orders by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the addition of entities to the U.S.
Department of Commerce Entity List, the imposition of economic sanctions by the
U.S. Department of the Treasury, the imposition of visa restrictions by the U.S.
Department of State, and the addition of goods to the U.S. Department of Labor’s
List of Goods Produced by Child Labor or Forced Labor (Annex 1);
·
Information on forced
labor in the Xinjiang silicon and polysilicon supply chain and the prevalence of
inputs sourced from Xinjiang (Annex 4); and
·
A list of other countries’
regulatory provisions and information on forced labor in supply chains (Annex 7).