Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden and the top Republican on the panel, Sen. Mike Crapo, are asking CBP to explain how it uses AI in both trade enforcement and trade facilitation, with detailed questions on where it's used, how it's validated and whether the agency allows importers and exporters to challenge a decision that is based on AI.
NEW YORK -- Importers' service providers said CBP's inconsistency and lack of communication about why supply chain documentation was not enough -- or even was enough -- to prove that there was no connection to Xinjiang are the biggest headaches of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act.
Lumber Liquidators reported decreased profits in the third quarter of 2023 as a result of CBP detentions of vinyl flooring products under the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, the company said in a quarterly report released Nov. 8. The detentions took $1.6 million off profit margins at the company, and, when combined with payments of antidumping and countervailing duties, turned profit growth negative for the quarter.
NEW YORK -- The chair of the committee that puts together the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act entity list told an audience from the apparel industry that the process is no "rubber stamp," and is instead a "meaningful process" involving investigations by agencies on the Forced Labor Enforcement Task Force.
Raja Krishnamoorthi, the top Democrat on the House Select Committee on China, said that policymaking around economic competition with China is "messy."
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RANCHO MIRAGE, Calif. -- University and nongovernmental organization reports on forced labor are not necessarily taken at face value, a CBP official said Oct. 27 at the Pacific Coast Council's Western Cargo Conference., known as Wesccon. With any report, an "import specialist or an analyst" has to make the "ultimate decision," Eric Choy, CBP executive director of trade remedy law enforcement, said.
Despite the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which should put a damper on exports in supply chains of goods that are destined for the U.S., exports from Xinjiang are climbing sharply, by nearly 50%, according to a recent report in the South China Morning Post.
A research paper says that prison camps for Uyghurs were phased out in 2019, and now, labor transfers have become the main mechanism of forced labor, usually for rural people who were never imprisoned. The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act tries to address labor transfers outside of Xinjiang by noting that they, too, are presumed to be forced labor, but the Forced Labor Enforcement Task Force has identified few companies or facilities in Eastern China that have employed Muslim minority workers.