Commissioners Ask USMCA Trade Representatives To Take Additional Steps to Stop Forced Labor

Urge passage of legislation in Canada and Mexico modeled on the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act

Four Commissioners from the bipartisan and bicameral Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC) today released a letter to the trade representatives of the U.S., Canada, and Mexico, urging robust implementation of existing forced labor import prohibitions in the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) and asking for greater cooperation to prevent goods denied in one country being re-exported to another within the USMCA. 

Signing the letter were the current Chairs and former Chairs of the CECC, Representative Chris Smith (R-NJ), Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Representative Jim McGovern (D-MA). All four led the effort to pass the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA). The UFLPA was created as a response to the atrocities perpetrated against the Uyghurs and other predominately Turkic Muslim people in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR), including mandated involuntary labor.  

Central to the UFLPA is the “rebuttable presumption,” which places the burden on importers to prove that their supply chains do not include goods or products from the XUAR. To ensure that no goods with ties to the XUAR enter the USCMA region, the Chairs hope that the UFLPA can serve as a model for similar legislation in Canada and Mexico.    

The signed letter can be found here. 

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