U.S. Raises China Pressure Over Uighurs With Import-Ban Plan

With Chinese-American relations deteriorating, the U.S. is using trade rules to ratchet up pressure on Beijing over its alleged repression of predominantly Muslim minority groups in the northwestern province of Xinjiang, where more than 80% of China’s cotton comes from.

As Kevin Cirilli reported Tuesday, U.S. Customs and Border Protection plans a so-called withhold release order (or WRO) that will cover all cotton, textile and tomato products from the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous region. It said the Chinese Communist Party and its companies “maintain a pervasive scheme” in the area “that imposes forced labor” in making these goods, which China’s Foreign Ministry has denied.

These orders prohibit imports of products suspected of being made through forced labor, even if evidence of the conditions isn’t conclusive. American importers then have three choices:

The CBP has already issued WROs against three Xinjiang-based hair-product and garment producers in 2020 and plans six more in addition to the blanket Xinjiang order.

The WROs come on top of restrictions imposed on a growing number of Chinese companies that the Department of Commerce has placed on its Entity List, which curbs the firms’ access to U.S. technology and commodities.