The bipartisan Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act became effective earlier this week and one of its sponsors, Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio, wasted no time pointing out which companies will be most strung by the legislation.

In a Twitter post Tuesday, Rubio cheered that his "anti-slavery bill kicks in today."

"Some 'woke' corporations make billions replacing American workers with the forced labor provided by their Communist business partners but it's both immoral & bad for Americans," Rubio said in his Twitter post.

President Joe Biden signing the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act into law in December | facebook.com/POTUS

The post linked to an op-ed by Rubio published the same day in RealClear, in which the senator pointed out that slavery has been illegal in the U.S. for almost 160 years but that U.S. business and consumers, for about 20 years, "benefit from the horrific practice."

"It's an extremely uncomfortable truth, and for most Americans, it likely comes as a surprise," Rubio said in his op-ed. "Until recently, they probably had no idea that the clothes they wear, the phones they cannot put down and the solar panels on their roofs were made, in part, by slaves. The same cannot be said of the companies that eagerly ship jobs overseas to China and source materials from concentration camps."

The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, Senate Bill 69, bans all imports of goods produced by Uyghur and other oppressed populations unless conclusive proof shows otherwise. The Tariff Act of 1930 already made it illegal for the U.S. to import goods produced by forced labor but S. 69 bans all imports from the Xinjiang region "unless U.S. Customs and Border Protection [CBP] certifies by clear and convincing evidence that goods were not produced with forced labor."

Rubio wrote that while the act will have a deep impact on global supply chains it's necessary to be sure China gets the message.

"This proclamation is already sending shockwaves through the global economy, but enduring change will only come from its rigorous and thorough enforcement," Rubio wrote. "That puts CBP on the front lines of the fight against modern slavery. The agency must ensure that suspect entities and all companies operating in Xinjiang provide the 'clear and convincing evidence' required by law. There can be no exceptions, no relaxation of standards and no willful ignorance."

Rubio also cautioned that it cannot be taken for granted that China will get it and, to that end, he had a message for President Joe Biden, who signed the legislation into law shortly before Christmas last year following overwhelming bipartisan passage in Congress.

"The Biden Administration is under immense pressure from nationless corporations and the regime in Beijing to find loopholes and carve-outs that would effectively gut the new law," Rubio said. "For example, CBP is under pressure to limit its detention of goods, particularly solar and cotton, to the smallest geographical region or sector possible. My message to President Biden and his administration is simple: Understand the significance of this moment and strictly implement this law."

Companies already know that the newly enacted law will shake up the world's supply chain, and some manufacturers are expecting delays as products produced using slave labor are purged from available imports, The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday.

China's well-documented human rights abuses include what has been called "cultural genocide." In particular, China denies Uyghur Muslims have for years been driven into Beijing-based detention facilities, subjecting young Uyghur school-age students to "thought education" or in any other way persecuting the minority group.

In a March 9 news story, The Wall Street Journal reported a growing consensus that China's actions against Uyghur Muslims, including coerced birth control, political indoctrination and forced labor, are consistent with genocide.

China's denial of its ill-treatment of Uyghur Muslims is countered by United Nations reports that China's detention of Uyghurs has escalated since the country stepped up its persecutions against the minority group in 2017. China has denied independent access of those detention centers, instead allowing only tightly controlled official tours. Last year, more than 40 mostly western nations called on China to grant the U.N. and other independent researchers "immediate, meaningful and unfettered access to Xinjiang," The Wall Street Journal reported in its news story in March.

Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act has buy-in from the U.S. State Department, which the same day as Rubio's op-ed piece issued a statement saying publicly that CBP would begin implementing the legislation's provisions. S. 69's passage underscores "our commitment to combating forced labor everywhere, including in Xinjiang, where genocide and crimes against humanity are ongoing," the State Department said in its statement.

"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," according to the statement. "Addressing forced labor and other human rights abuses in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and around the world is a priority for President Biden and this administration. 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, as well as the release of a multi-agency business advisory on Xinjiang to help U.S. companies avoid commerce that facilitates or benefits from human rights abuses, including forced labor. 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."

The U.S. Commerce Department is already investigating solar imports from Asian nations following a complaint alleging China has been funneling imports through Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia to evade Obama-era U.S. tariffs. The Commerce Department's investigation has bearing under the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act because solar components from China have been linked inextricably to forced Uyghur labor, according to a report issued by Sheffield Hallam University in the UK in May of last year. The Sheffield report linked the suppressed Uyghur population to the global solar panel supply.

Uyghurs forced into labor in China are responsible for 45% of the world's solar-grade polysilicon, which 95% of solar modules rely on, the report said. Every polysilicon producer in the Uyghur Region has reported participation in the "labour transfer programmes and/or are supplied by raw materials companies that have," the report's abstract said.

The labor transfers outlined in the report are involuntary and accomplished through "unprecedented coercion." The research also identified 90 Chinese and international companies whose supply chains are intertwined and thus would be impacted by the realization that the Chinese products are being created using forced labor.