Upcoming and much anticipated guidance on compliance with the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) could very well be less detailed than the trade community would like, so importers should treat it like “gravy” and focus on starting now on due diligence efforts in preparation for the new law’s effective date in June, customs lawyer Richard Mojica of Miller & Chevalier said.
International Trade Today is providing readers with the top stories from last week in case they were missed. All articles can be found by searching on the titles or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.
International Trade Today is providing readers with the top stories from last week in case they were missed. All articles can be found by searching on the titles or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.
CBP plans to send letters to "identified as having previously imported merchandise that may be subject" to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, CBP said in an April 12 email. The UFLPA imposes a rebuttable presumption that goods from Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region involve the use of forced labor as of June 21. Ahead June 21, CBP will use the "known importer letters" to "encourage those importers to address any forced labor issues in their supply chains in a timely manner," it said.
Academics and human rights organization employees are concerned about trade groups' requests at a public hearing on the implementation of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act.
Importers are hoping that the guidance from the federal government on how to comply with the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act will help identify Chinese firms that are outside of Xinjiang but employ Uyghur or other minority Muslim workers through China's "poverty alleviation" programs. Goods from those factories will be presumed to be made with forced labor, but customs advisers from KPMG said identifying that nexus to forced labor in your supply chain is even more challenging than seeing if you have Xinjiang inputs several tiers down in your supply chain.
Senators on the committee that oversees trade pressed U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai repeatedly on why the administration isn't engaged in negotiations with other countries to get them to lower their tariffs, so that U.S. exporters, particularly agricultural producers, can gain more market share. Both Democrats and Republicans questioned the decision to pursue the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework as something other than a traditional free trade agreement,
A withhold release order on Chinese polysilicon remains the major concern for the U.S. solar industry, despite recently opened anti-circumvention inquiries that could result in the imposition of antidumping and countervailing duties on solar modules from Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam and CBP’s implementation of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, according to a market research report released by BofA Securities March 29.
As CBP works to implement the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, its champion, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., told International Trade Today he's concerned that CBP will not strictly enforce the law, which says that any good with any input from China's Xinjiang region is assumed to contain forced labor.