The Biden-Harris Administration is determined to combat the crime of forced labor and to prevent goods made with forced labor from entering the United States.
To that end, the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, or UFLPA, went into force on June 21. The Act prohibits imports of goods into the United States from the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (Xinjiang) and certain other entities in the People’s Republic of China, unless the importer can prove the goods were not made with forced labor.
In Xinjiang, the PRC is committing genocide and crimes against humanity. It has established internment camps for more than one million predominantly Muslim Uyghurs and members of other ethnic and religious minority groups, where forced labor, rape, torture and forced indoctrination continue. Forced labor also continues outside the camps in Xinjiang and some Uyghurs and members of other minority groups from Xinjiang are coerced to work in different regions of the PRC.
UFLPA is enforced by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the CBP, with the presumption that all goods, ware, articles, or merchandise mined, produced, or manufactured wholly or in part from Xinjiang are made with forced labor and will be prohibited from importation into the United States unless importers can provide to CBP clear and convincing evidence proving otherwise.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken noted that the Act was passed by the U.S. Congress with overwhelming bipartisan support.
“The State Department is committed to working with Congress and our interagency partners to continue combating forced labor in Xinjiang and strengthen international coordination against this egregious violation of human rights,” he said. “We have taken concrete measures to promote accountability in Xinjiang, including visa restrictions, financial sanctions under Global Magnitsky, export controls, Withhold Release Orders and import restrictions...Together with our interagency partners, we will continue to engage companies to remind them of U.S. legal obligations which prohibit importing goods to the United States that are made with forced labor.”
Secretary Blinken declared, “We are rallying our allies and partners to make global supply chains free from the use of forced labor, to speak out against atrocities in Xinjiang, and to join us in calling on the government of the PRC to immediately end atrocities and human rights
abuses, including forced labor.”
U.S. Determined to Combat Forced Labor
The Biden-Harris Administration is determined to combat the crime of forced labor and to prevent goods made with forced labor from entering the United States.
