The United States has barred imports from 26 Chinese cotton traders or warehouse facilities on Thursday as part of its effort to eliminate goods made with the forced labor of Uyghur minorities from the US supply chain.
The companies are the latest additions to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act Entity List that restricts the import of goods tied to what the US government has characterized as an ongoing genocide of minorities in China’s Xinjiang region.
US officials believe Chinese authorities have established labor camps for Uyghurs and other Muslim minority groups in China’s western Xinjiang region. Beijing denies any abuses.
Many of the cotton companies listed are based outside of Xinjiang but source their cotton from the region, the US Department of Homeland Security said in a statement.
The designations help “responsible companies conduct due diligence so that, together, we can keep the products of forced labor out of our country,” Alejandro Mayorkas, Secretary of Homeland Security, said in the statement.
A spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in Washington criticized the move.
"The so-called ‘Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act’ is just an instrument of a few US politicians to disrupt stability in Xinjiang and contain China’s development,” the spokesperson said.
Washington has restricted imports from 65 entities since the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act Entity List law was passed in 2021, according to the department.
“We enthusiastically endorse DHS’s action today to nearly double the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act’s ‘Entity List’ — while recognizing that the current list remains only a fraction of the businesses complicit in forced labor,” Representative Chris Smith and Senator Jeff Merkley, chairs of the bipartisan Congressional-Executive Commission on China, said in a statement.
The lawmakers want DHS to blacklist Chinese companies in the polysilicon, aluminum, PVC and rayon industries and any company in other parts of Asia making goods for the US market with inputs sourced from Xinjiang.
“Suspected” is American language for no hard evidence. The Americans are so eager to fire sanctions, evidence does not really matter. On the other hand, Israel is either committing mass murder or genocide, whatever you want to call it. What Americans believe is evidence is penal labor, which is a legitimate punishment as much as prisoners making state license plates. Chinese actually punish their criminals and discipline their citizens for bad behavior. Unlike the American justice system that treat their hardened criminals gently and humanely as possible as to not cause duress or discomfort. The stereotypical American criminal has a decade long rap sheet of crimes. American death penalty is so rare, you’re more likely going to die from a car crash than being on death row. If they land death row, they spend decades living their lives reflecting on the good times. That is the incompetent American justice system. Their justice system is so bad, they have no idea what to do to lower crime other than don’t prosecute crime. Look how El Salvador is made safe by leaps and bounds that the current leader has an 80-90 percent approval. G.I. Joe is lucky if he reaches 45%. That is competent leadership.
The fuck? Sorry your here telling us that the American prison system is too soft? And that the treatment of r Uygher minority is justified actually?
It’s actually a bad thing that slavery exists. Letting people use slave labor from the prison population creates an economic incentive to imprison innocent people.