CBP's Commercial Customs Operations Advisory Committee will be holding its quarterly meeting on March 5 in Atlanta, according to a Federal Register notice.
Sohan Dasgupta has joined DHS as assistant secretary for trade and economic security, he announced on LinkedIn. Dasgupta will work on issues related to the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. and the Forced Labor Enforcement Task Force, along with other trade and supply chain issues. He previously served as a DHS deputy general counsel before going to a private practice in 2021.
CBP has shifted its forced labor enforcement efforts to the automotive and aerospace sectors in the first quarter of FY 2025, according to analysis from Kharon, a risk analytics platform.
Altana, a New York-based, AI-informed global supply chain mapper, has determined that as many as 18,210 companies across the world could be exposed to corporate entities that DHS earlier this month flagged for potentially violating the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (see 2501140054). Of that group of more than 18,000 companies, 2,223 are U.S. companies.
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.
A lawyer for Shein submitted a letter to the U.K. Parliament denying its U.S.-bound products contain any Chinese cotton. The letter, sent Jan. 20 after several British lawmakers in a hearing earlier this month expressed concern about forced labor in the company's supply chains, said that the company complies with the laws and regulations of the countries in which it sells.
The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the week of Jan. 13-19:
Chinese manufacturer Camel Group Co. took to the Court of International Trade last week to contest its placement on the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) Entity List, arguing that the Forced Labor Enforcement Task Force "utterly disregarded, ignored and trampled" its due process rights in a "flawed and poorly executed process." The company said FLETF illicitly conducted the process in the shadows, refusing to offer it access to any of the evidence used against the company, and that the decision to deny its petition to be removed from the list wasn't backed by substantial evidence (Camel Group Co. v. United States, CIT # 25-00022).
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative released a trade strategy to combat forced labor, which includes policy successes during the Biden administration and "areas for potential future action" for the next administration, it announced in a Jan. 13 news release.
Cotton and textile manufacturers, mining companies and manufacturers producing solar modules with polysilicon were among those targeted for inclusion in the Department of Homeland Security's list of companies flagged for using forced labor or sourcing materials from the Xinjiang region in China.