Human rights activists, labor leaders and others urged the White House on Friday to put its weight behind a coming ban on products made with forced labor in the Xinjiang region of China, saying that slavery and coercion taint company supply chains that run through the region and China more broadly.
The law, the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, was signed by U.S. President Joe Biden in December and is set to go into effect in June. It bars all goods made in Xinjiang or with ties to certain sanctioned entities or programs that transfer minority workers to job sites, unless the importer can demonstrate to the U.S. government that its supply chains are free of forced labor.
It remains to be seen how stringently the law is applied and if it ends up affecting a handful of companies or far more. A broad interpretation of the law could cast scrutiny on many products that the United States imports from China, which is home to more than one-quarter of the world’s manufacturing. That could lead to more detentions of goods at the U.S. border, likely delaying product deliveries and further fueling inflation.