Human Rights Groups Petition CBP to Stop Imports of Cotton Goods From Xinjiang Region of China

CBP should block imports of “all cotton-made goods linked to the Xinjiang region of China based on evidence of widespread forced labor,” human rights groups said in a recent news release. The coalition, which includes the AFL-CIO, the Uyghur Human Rights Project and the Human Trafficking Legal Center, filed a petition with the agency Aug. 28 to request a withhold release order on such products. “Industry groups have repeatedly requested clear guidance from the US government and a regional WRO would provide it,” the coalition said.

CBP didn't comment on the petition. “Such broad agency action is supported by the abundance of evidence,” the groups said in the petition. Previous government actions have “not yet convinced many US apparel brands of the need to extricate their supply chains from Xinjiang (whether direct or indirect) as a matter of urgency,” they said.

CBP issuance of a “regional WRO would be by far the most economically significant action that could be taken right now,” the groups said. “It might also have a ripple effect in encouraging other countries to impose import restrictions on forced and/or prison-labor made goods under their own laws and regulations. Such action would require a choice to be made between continuing the persecution of the Uyghur people or face the exodus of billions of dollars in business contracts and investment from US companies and others.”

The agency has previously taken a similar approach to stop imports of cotton suspected of involving forced labor, the group said. They cited the 2018 WRO on all cotton and cotton-made goods originating in Turkmenistan (see 1805210028). “The Tariff Act was designed for cases like this to block goods -- in this case brand name clothes -- from being sold to U.S. consumers making them complicit in gross abuses against the Uyghur people,” said Jennifer Rosenbaum, executive director of the recently merged labor rights organization Global Labor Justice-International Labor Rights Forum, in a statement. “Corporate Social Responsibility efforts have again failed. A regional WRO creates the necessary market consequences for the fast fashion brands who are profiting from forced labor.”