COAC Forced Labor Recommendations Draw More Criticism, Called 'Embarrassing'

The Commercial Customs Operations Advisory Committee's Forced Labor Working Group's recommendations seem to be “of a piece of a general overall attitude by U.S. importers to try and ride out the current widespread public outrage,” the Southern Shrimp Alliance said in a March 22 letter to CBP's Office of Trade Forced Labor Division Director Therese Randazzo. The SSA said “each of these recommendations appears designed to complicate and further limit the agency’s ability to effectively enforce” Section 1307 of the U.S. Code. The COAC approved the recommendations for submission to CBP at a March 17 meeting (see 2103160027).

The SSA letter follows a recent Coalition for a Prosperous America request that CBP reject the recommendations (see 2103170048). Both groups are largely focused on protecting domestic industries. Neither of the working group co-chairs, Erika Vidal-Faulkenberry, director-Supply Chain Regional Exports & Global Trade at the Hershey Co., and Brian White, vice president-compliance at The J.M. Smucker Co., responded to a request for comment.

Although the SSA doesn't “know what motivated the Forced Labor Working Group to issue these embarrassing recommendations,” they seem to be part of an effort to outlast the public outcry “regarding the prevalence of slave, forced, and child labor in foreign supply chains without making any serious efforts to address the problem,” the group said. “The lack of concern is most evident when industry groups advocate for policies in forums where the issue of forced labor is not germane.” As an example, the SSA pointed to a recent National Fisheries Institute filing with the FDA that included objections to increased traceability requirements for imported shrimp.

The idea that CBP should focus on results that show reductions of forced labor in supply chains ignores what the statute requires, it said. “Nothing in Section 1307 indicates that Congress tasked CBP with eradicating forced labor from foreign supply chains,” the SSA said. Lawmakers instead sought “to address forced labor by precluding goods made through slave labor from entering this market” and “CBP’s implementation of this Congressional mandate can only be meaningfully measured through enforcement actions, such as the number of withhold release orders and detentions issued.”

U.S. Fashion Industry Association President Julia Hughes at a recent Senate hearing on forced labor offered support for the COAC recommendations “that urge CBP to expand its communication and collaboration with the trade and adopt 'objective' methodology to measure the success of their enforcement efforts from the communities most impacted by forced labor rather than enforcement output” (see 2103180056). For CBP, “success should be measured by the degree to which CBP’s enforcement activity is effectively reducing forced labor,” she said. “To this end, CBP should adopt a risk-based approach to enforcement, focusing on the worst actors first and providing as much predictability and certainty to impacted stakeholders, as possible, to enable them to amplify CBP’s enforcement efforts.”