The Commerce Department implemented the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act to help prevent importing goods that are mined, produced, or manufactured by victims of forced labor in China, especially by Uyghur Muslims.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the law specifically targets any imports that were created or obtained through forced labor in Xinjiang, PRC, according to a recent press release.
“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,” Blinken said.
The original UFLPA bill was signed into law on Dec. 23, 2021, after receiving bipartisan support in the House and Senate, the release reported.
“The Commerce Department looks forward to collaborating with industry and non-government partners who contributed their voices to help shape this strategy, and with Congress which took bold, bipartisan action to set the groundwork for this strategy through enactment of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act,” Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo said in a Commerce Department release.
Raimondo said that the UFLPA is a great step to better align the resources, expertise and influence of the Commerce Department and its sister agencies in keeping goods manufactured with forced labor from entering the United States and harming our economy and workforce, according to the Commerce Department release.
Products using raw materials from Xinjiang or with connection to Chinese labor and poverty alleviation programs deemed coercive by the United States will be impacted upon enforcement of the UFLPA, according to The New York Times.
One million international companies will be impacted by the American ban on goods, according to an estimate by Evan Smith, CEO of a supply chain tech company called Altana AI, The Times reported. That’s out of 10 million companies that sell, purchase and produce goods and/or merchandise.
