Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., and two dozen other Democrats, told Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo that it's clear that Vietnam doesn't meet the criteria in law to qualify as a market economy -- and that if the agency were to classify it that way, the way that status that would affect 25 antidumping and countervailing duty orders would threaten American workers.
The Southern Shrimp Alliance formally petitioned for the Forced Labor Enforcement Task Force to add eight Chinese processing companies to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act's Entity List.
CBP in December identified 450 shipments valued at more than $187 million for further examination based on the suspected use of forced labor, including goods subject to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act and withhold release orders, the agency said in its most recent operational statistics update. The value of those shipments is up from November, when CBP identified 331 shipments worth more than $125 million (see 2312260048). Also in December, CBP seized 1,291 shipments that contained counterfeit goods valued at more than $86 million if the items had been genuine, the agency said.
CBP on Jan. 27 will deploy updates to the Automated Commercial Environment Protest user interface to automate Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act-related reviews, the agency said. Following the deployment, users will be able to protest a CBP exclusion decision via the ACE Protest tool, CBP said.
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A joint report from Sheffield Hallam University's Laura Murphy, now at DHS, as well as Anti-Slavery International and the Investor Alliance for Human Rights, doesn't name any new sectors or firms with exposure to Uyghur forced labor, but offers resources for those wishing to avoid that risk in either the solar panel or electric vehicle battery sector.
CBP issued the following releases on commercial trade and related matters:
Many goods denied entry into the U.S. under the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act are not actually goods made with forced labor, but that doesn't stop UFLPA-detained goods from being stigmatized as such, said John Foote of Kelley Drye in a Jan. 19 blog post.