Image: Reuters Berita 24 English - A senior U.S. official warned corporations they could not maintain "deliberate ignorance" abou...
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| Image: Reuters |
Berita 24 English - A senior U.S. official warned corporations they could not maintain "deliberate ignorance" about their supply chains and said U.S. partners appeared committed to following Washington's lead in barring goods from China's Xinjiang province that were produced using forced labour.
In order to reduce imports of goods from Xinjiang, where Washington accuses China of perpetrating genocide against ethnic Uyghurs and other Muslims and herding them into camps, the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA), which was passed by the United States, went into effect last month.
Beijing claims it has developed "vocational training facilities" to combat terrorism, separatism, and religious radicalism while denying that there have been violations in Xinjiang.
Thea Lee, the U.S. Labor Department's deputy undersecretary for international affairs, stated in an interview that she held discussions with peers in the European Union and Canada on how to impose their own regulations on products created with forced labour.
"This seems to be moving, in my opinion. In Canada, it is in motion. The European Union is in motion. It's really spreading over the world, so I've been telling businesses, "You need to start taking this seriously," "added Lee, whose organisation is a part of the government task group overseeing the implementation of the UFLPA.
"At the moment, businesses exhibit what I would call a purposeful ignorance. Since they are not required to know, they are unaware "Lee talked about how well they understood their supply chains. However, she claimed that when American laws started to "rub off" on other nations, that was about to change.
As part of their commitments under a trilateral trade agreement, Lee said Canada and Mexico were moving toward what would eventually become a "common North American standard" banning goods made with forced labour. He added that the EU's focus on creating a mandatory due-diligence standard was a good place to start.
As it started enforcing UFLPA, Washington was rallying allies against forced labour, according to U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken in June.
According to the statute, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency imposes a "rebuttable presumption" that, unless proven differently, all products from Xinjiang were produced using forced labour.
Given indications of connections to forced labour in their supply chains, several U.S. legislators have questioned CBP authorities about why three significant Chinese solar energy companies were not included on a list of prohibited importers.
By broadening the list of prohibited goods, Biden risks jeopardising the supply of solar panels in the US and jeopardising his plan to decarbonize the US power industry by 2035.
Regarding the solar companies, Lee opted not to comment.
In order to ensure that there is no forced labour in our supply chains, she stated, "Our aim is to provide as much useful information as we can." And we are aware that there will always be competing goals inside a government and an administration.
On September 28, she added, the Labor Department would release an updated list of products made with child or forced labour and would also unveil new tools to help it meet a congressional obligation to look more closely at supply chains.
