Select Committee Leader Says He Hopes de Minimis Changes Become Law

Raja Krishnamoorthi, the top Democrat on the House Select Committee on China, said that policymaking around economic competition with China is "messy."

"I think there are a lot of different constituencies, stakeholders," he said during a Q&A at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Krishnamoorthi noted that the committee -- whose formal title is the House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party -- issued its recommendations for legislation to strengthen enforcement of the ban on imports made with Uyghur forced labor (see 2305240042). He said he hopes there also can be legislative recommendations for economic competition with China.

The committee recommended that the de minimis threshold of $800 be reduced "with particular focus on foreign adversaries including the PRC," and recommended that Congress dedicate more money to the Department of Homeland Security so it can make a comprehensive entity list of companies that utilize forced labor from Xinjiang minorities and can do more investigations.

Krishnamoorthi said he hoped those recommendations become law. He said he hears from his Illinois constituents that they're concerned that slave labor "is being used to create consumer products and that’s being sold in Temu and Shein and that’s undercutting the brick and mortar stores" in his district.

The committee accused the two Chinese apparel sellers of not complying with the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (see 2306220060) and of using de minimis as a way to avoid scrutiny.

More broadly, Krishnamoorthi said the U.S. needs to derisk its supply chains for the propulsion elements used in ammunition, for inputs needed for the clean energy transition and for active pharmaceutical ingredients.

"If we don’t keep our eye on that ball we are going to find ourselves in a more tenuous position" in a few years than today's position, he said.

The congressman said that his voters "want to see smart action that leads to progress on those [issues] without leading to some sort of spiraling conflict with the Chinese."

He said: "Rhetoric is something they’re concerned about as well. They don’t want to hear rhetoric that could lead to anti-Asian hate. We have to be careful, going forward, how we talk about this issue."