The Commercial Customs Operations Advisory Committee (COAC) for CBP will next meet remotely June 23, CBP said in a notice. Comments are due in writing by June 22.
Uyghur Human Rights Project Board Chair Nury Turkel told the House Foreign Affairs Committee that his nonprofit wants swift passage of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which would create a rebuttable presumption that goods from China's Xinjiang province were made with forced labor. "The 11 current Withhold-release orders (WROs) are a wholly inadequate response to the gravity of the crimes, the harm to American workers whose wages are undercut by forced-labor competition, and the unwitting complicity of American consumers who buy face masks, hair weaves, cotton apparel, and solar panels produced by the forced labor of Muslim Uyghurs," he said in his prepared testimony.
The International Trade Commission on April 8 began two Section 337 investigations into allegations that imports of toner supply containers for copy machines infringe patents held by Canon, the ITC said in a news release (ITC Inv. No. 337-TA-1259, -1260). In the two investigations, which cover different sets of respondents, the ITC will consider whether to issue general exclusion orders banning all imports that infringe the patents identified in Canon's complaint. Canon says the infringing cartridges are sold as alternatives to Canon-made toner supply containers. The ITC will also consider cease and desist orders against the following respondents to the two investigations:
The Commercial Customs Operations Advisory Committee's Forced Labor Working Group's recommendations seem to be “of a piece of a general overall attitude by U.S. importers to try and ride out the current widespread public outrage,” the Southern Shrimp Alliance said in a March 22 letter to CBP's Office of Trade Forced Labor Division Director Therese Randazzo. The SSA said “each of these recommendations appears designed to complicate and further limit the agency’s ability to effectively enforce” Section 1307 of the U.S. Code. The COAC approved the recommendations for submission to CBP at a March 17 meeting (see 2103160027).
Canon seeks a general exclusion order banning all imports of toner supply containers for copy machines that allegedly infringe its patents, it told the ITC in a Section 337 complaint filed March 8. Canon says Ninestar, General Plastic Industrial, Wiztoner and retailers in the U.S. and China are manufacturing and importing toner supply containers for use in Canon copy machines, including Canon’s imageRUNNER lines, that copy Canon’s patented technologies and are sold as alternatives to Canon-made toner supply containers. Canon also seeks cease and desist orders against the companies listed in its complaint. Comments are due to the ITC March 22.
Many expect trade policy under the Biden administration to be more worker-focused than consumer-focused, but many specifics remain undecided. “The jury is still out on what that pro-worker trade policy will look like in practice,” said Joshua Boswell, a lawyer at Crowell & Moring. Boswell spoke to a webinar audience Feb. 17 on the 2021 trade outlook and said such predictions don't tell you much about tariffs, free trade negotiations or trade remedies in and of themselves.
The final forms of two bills addressing American commercial involvement with Uighur forced labor will be considered for votes this week, but the rewrites by the Rules Committee soften the impact on businesses, particularly in apparel and shoes. The Uighur Forced Labor Prevention Act now also has the disclosure bill incorporated into the language.
CBP should “exercise discretion” when using its withhold release order (WRO) authority to address forced labor violations, leaving space for importers to use their leverage to get suppliers to change their illegal practices, the Commercial Customs Operations Advisory Committee (COAC) Intelligent Enforcement subcommittee said in draft recommendations released ahead of the July 15 COAC meeting.
The Democratic members of the House Ways and Means Committee have told the leaders of CBP and the Department of Homeland Security that the failure to establish the Forced Labor Enforcement Task Force by the April 28 deadline in statute is unacceptable.
New Jersey Democratic Rep. Bill Pascrell, who voted against the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, issued a statement complaining that the administration has not yet named the members of the forced labor enforcement task force, which was supposed to be formed by 90 days after the implementing bill's passage. The task force is meant to discuss active Withhold and Release Orders, investigations that could lead to WROs, petitions for investigations and forced labor enforcement priorities.