U.S. Customs and Border Patrol at all U.S. points of entry will detail shipments of cotton and cotton products originating from the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (XPCC) via a Withhold Release Order (WRO) based on information that “reasonably indicates the use of forced labor, including convict labor,” according to a statement from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
The agency said the order applies to “all cotton and cotton products produced by the XPCC and its subordinate and affiliated entities as well as any products that are made in whole or in part with or derived from that cotton, such as apparel, garments, and textiles.” This marks the sixth action taken by the Trump administration's CBP relative to goods made by forced labor in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, DHS said.
DHS Acting Deputy Secretary Ken Cuccinelli said, the action was to make sure that those who are abuse human rights “are not allowed to manipulate our system in order to profit from slave labor. 'Made in China' is not just a country of origin it is a warning label.” He also said that the action could affect “billions of dollars” of imports when the action scales up. The administration in early July announced issued a Xinjiang Supply Chain Business Advisory and the Department of Treasury July 11 announced that it had sanctioned XPCC and prohibited doing business directly with XPCC.
China's Xinjiang produces 85% of China's cotton and DHS said that the actions thus far are not a region-wide blockade on cotton products from Xinjiang.
But Cuccinelli said that XPCC is so prevalent in the region's economy that blocking products from the firm will be similar to a region-wide ban. “It is so massive that even though it appears that it's a single company, from our perspective it is equivalent to a regional WRO,” Cuccinelli said.
Acting CPB Commissioner Mark Morgan said while the U.S. wants to target those using forced labor, they do not want to negatively impact entities that are not using forced labor. “That's why we are going to continue to investigate and we are not going to issue a region-wide WRO until we feel we can implement that correctly,” he noted. The U.S. textile industry has expressed concern about a region-wide ban as it would be difficult to determine which products from Xinjiang, and Morgan acknowledged CBP “shared those concerns.” But Cuccinelli warned that a region-wide ban is “definitely under consideration.”