The public comment period for input on how to implement the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act will begin Jan. 24, DHS said in a notice. Within the notice, DHS offers 18 questions that commenters may want to address as part of the process. Comments on the implementation will be due March 10. Effective June 21, the law will impose a new rebuttable presumption that goods linked to Xinjiang province are made with forced labor and are prohibited from being imported (see 2112280048).
Many companies may not have insight into where their raw materials come from, said Wiley lawyers while speaking on a webinar about preparing for the enforcement of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act. But doing the best they can to eradicate any links to the Xinjiang province in China is needed to lower the risk that goods could be detained under suspicion of forced labor, given that imports with links to Xinjiang will be assumed to be made with forced labor, starting in June.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations said Intel was wrong to remove a phrase from its supplier letters that told them they should not source goods or labor from China's Xinjiang province. The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act says that any goods made with Uyghur labor outside Xinjiang, or made in Xinjiang, would be presumed to be made with forced labor, and therefore barred from entry into the U.S. CAIR Deputy Executive Director Edward Ahmed Mitchell said, "Once again, an American corporation has showed extreme cowardice by bowing to the sensitivities of the Chinese Communist Party, which is perpetrating a genocide against Uyghur Muslims. By removing language that explicitly prohibits the sourcing of goods from the Uyghur region of China, Intel is enabling the Chinese governments' efforts to profit from forced labor and bully the world into silence."
The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act “maliciously denigrates the human rights situation in China’s Xinjiang in disregard of facts and truth,” a Chinese Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesperson said at a Dec. 24 regular press conference, according to an English translation. President Joe Biden signed the measure into law Dec. 23 (see 2112230018). U.S. allegations of forced labor and genocide in Xinjiang “are nothing but vicious lies concocted by anti-China forces,” the spokesperson said. The U.S. “is engaging in political manipulation and economic coercion, and seeking to undermine Xinjiang’s prosperity and stability and contain China’s development under the pretext of human rights,” he said. “China deplores and firmly rejects this” new U.S. law.
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Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., was able to get unanimous consent for a bill that will create a rebuttable presumption that goods with Xinjiang content are made with forced labor. The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which was already approved in the House, now heads to the president's desk. After it is signed, agencies will have 180 days to develop guidance for importers on due diligence and what sort of evidence would be adequate to prove goods are not made with forced labor. The shift of the burden of proof to importers will also begin 180 days after enactment.
Now that the bill that would create a rebuttable presumption that goods with Xinjiang inputs were made with forced labor has passed Congress and will likely be signed by President Biden, apparel trade groups and retail trade groups say they're ready to work with the administration on the strategy to implement the law.
Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., sought unanimous consent to pass the compromise text of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act on Dec. 15, but Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., prevented quick approval of the bill after Rubio declined to attach a child tax credit extension. Passage will likely have to wait until sometime in 2022 at the soonest because of Wyden's action.
Senate and House lawmakers reached an agreement on compromise text that merges versions of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act from each chamber, Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., tweeted on Dec. 14. "Happy to report that Senator [Marco] Rubio & I just reached an agreement on final text of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act," McGovern said. "We will be moving our bill through both chambers & to President Biden's desk as quickly as possible." The bill would add a rebuttable presumption that goods from the Xinjiang region of China are made with forced labor starting 180 days after enactment.