According to a report recently published by the U.S. State Department, the Xinjiang region of China remains mired with human rights issues strongly denounced by the U.S. government. The report states unequivocally that glaring examples of such human rights violations took place throughout 2024.
“Genocide and crimes against humanity occurred during the year in China against predominantly Muslim Uyghurs and members of other ethnic and religious minority groups in Xinjiang,” the report reads.
- Materials, most notably cotton, continue to be produced out of the Xinjiang region, indirectly implicating importers in the forced labor of the victims of these conditions.
In 2022, the Biden administration passed the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act with bipartisan support. The law bans all imports from China’s Xinjiang province under the presumption that all goods from the area are produced with forced labor and imposes sanctions on foreign individuals responsible for forced labor in the region. It also includes a provision for importers to rebut presumptions that imported goods were produced with forced labor.
The U.S. has been critical of the Chinese government for not being transparent about crimes taking place in Xinjiang and the country’s failure to hold parties accountable for such atrocities.
In 2022, the Department of Homeland Security provided guidance to importers to help them avoid sourcing from regions connected to the UFLPA:
- U.S. Customs and Border Protection provided an operational guidance for importers.
- The DHS provided “Strategy to Prevent the Importation of Goods Mined, Produced, or Manufactured with Forced Labor in the People’s Republic of China.”
- There is also a UFLPA Entity List.
China Trade Remains Fraught
The report, while horrific, does not come as a surprise to most global experts. It does, however, create an even thornier backdrop for U.S. trade with China.
- China is responsible for a significant amount of global cotton production, and Xinjiang supplies nearly one-fifth of the world’s cotton.
- Similarly, products such as steel, lithium and copper, among many others coming from China, are being labeled “high priority” by the Customs and Border Protection under the UFLPA.
Kristi Noem
Secretary of Homeland Security
“The use of slave labor is repulsive, and we will hold Chinese companies accountable for abuses and eliminate threats its forced labor practices pose to our prosperity,” Kristi Noem, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, said in a statement.
Earlier this year, President Donald Trump signed an executive order extending the tariff pause for imports from China for another 90 days, pushing the new deadline to November 10, allowing for negotiations between the two world powers to take place in that time.
If a deal isn’t reached at that point, then U.S. duties on China will shoot back up to where they stood in April, when the tariff war between the world’s largest trading nations was at its peak.
At that time, Trump had cranked up blanket tariffs on Chinese imports to 145%, and China had retaliated with 125% duties on U.S. goods.
- Until November 10, pending a new deal, the pause locks in 30% tariffs on Chinese imports entering the U.S.
