US President Donald Trump’s administration has expanded economic pressure on Xinjiang, banning cotton imports from a powerful Chinese quasi-military organization that it says uses the forced labor of detained Uighur Muslims.
The US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) on Wednesday said that its “Withhold Release Order” would ban cotton and cotton products from the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (XPCC), one of China’s largest producers.
The move, which could have a sweeping effect on companies involved in selling textiles and apparel to the US, is among several the Trump administration has been working on in its final weeks to harden the US position against China, making it more difficult for US president-elect Joe Biden to ease US-China tensions.
The targeting of XPCC, which produced 30 percent of China’s cotton in 2015, follows a US Department of the Treasury ban in July on all US dollar transactions with the sprawling business-and-paramilitary entity, founded in 1954 to settle China’s far west.
US Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kenneth Cuccinelli, who oversees the border agency, called “Made in China” a “warning label.”
“The cheap cotton goods you may be buying for family and friends during this season of giving — if coming from China — may have been made by slave labor in some of the most egregious human rights violations existing today in the modern world,” he told a news conference.
Cuccinelli said a region-wide Xinjiang cotton import ban was still being studied.
The UN cites what it says are credible reports that 1 million Muslims held in camps have been put to work. China denies mistreating Uighurs and says the camps are vocational training centers needed to fight extremism.
While the sanctions target XPCC’s financial structure, Wednesday’s action will force apparel firms and other companies shipping cotton products into the US to eliminate XPCC-produced cotton fiber from many stages of their supply chains, CBP Executive Assistant Commissioner for Trade Brenda Smith said.
“That pretty much blocks all Chinese cotton textile imports,” said a China-based cotton trader, who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the issue.
Identifying cotton from a specific supplier would sharply raise manufacturing costs, and only the few large companies with fully integrated operations across the complex textile supply chain could guarantee that no XPCC product has been used, the trader said.
“It really depends on how much proof they want. If they want real proof that this cotton has not been used, that’s going to be extremely difficult,” he added.
Major clothing brands, including Gap, Patagonia and Zara owner Inditex, have told the Thomson Reuters Foundation that they did not source from factories in Xinjiang — but that they could not confirm that their supply chains were free of cotton picked from the region.
The XPCC could not immediately be reached for comment.
The China National Textile and Apparel Council declined to comment, while the China Cotton Textile Association could not immediately be reached.
In September, CBP considered a much broader import ban on all cotton and tomato products from Xinjiang, but after dissent from within the Trump administration, it announced narrower bans on products from specific entities, including two smaller cotton and apparel producers.
Apparel makers had criticized a broader ban as impossible to enforce, but on Wednesday clothing and retail groups welcomed the XPCC-specific ban.
The groups, including the American Apparel and Footwear Association and the National Retail Federation, said in a statement that they were on the “front lines of efforts to ensure forced labor does not taint our supply chains or enter the United States.”
Biden has pledged to work with US allies to bring pressure on China to curb human rights and trade abuses.
Trump in recent weeks has increased action against major Chinese state companies, banning access to US technology and investments.
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr yesterday vowed that those behind bogus flood control projects would be arrested before Christmas, days after deadly back-to-back typhoons left swathes of the country underwater. Scores of construction firm owners, government officials and lawmakers — including Marcos’ cousin congressman — have been accused of pocketing funds for substandard or so-called “ghost” infrastructure projects. The Philippine Department of Finance has estimated the nation’s economy lost up to 118.5 billion pesos (US$2 billion) since 2023 due to corruption in flood control projects. Criminal cases against most of the people implicated are nearly complete, Marcos told reporters. “We don’t file cases for
OUTRAGE: The former strongman was accused of corruption and responsibility for the killings of hundreds of thousands of political opponents during his time in office Indonesia yesterday awarded the title of national hero to late president Suharto, provoking outrage from rights groups who said the move was an attempt to whitewash decades of human rights abuses and corruption that took place during his 32 years in power. Suharto was a US ally during the Cold War who presided over decades of authoritarian rule, during which up to 1 million political opponents were killed, until he was toppled by protests in 1998. He was one of 10 people recognized by Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto in a televised ceremony held at the presidential palace in Jakarta to mark National
Ecuadorans are today to vote on whether to allow the return of foreign military bases and the drafting of a new constitution that could give the country’s president more power. Voters are to decide on the presence of foreign military bases, which have been banned on Ecuadoran soil since 2008. A “yes” vote would likely bring the return of the US military to the Manta air base on the Pacific coast — once a hub for US anti-drug operations. Other questions concern ending public funding for political parties, reducing the number of lawmakers and creating an elected body that would
‘ATTACK ON CIVILIZATION’: The culture ministry released drawings of six missing statues representing the Roman goddess of Venus, the tallest of which was 40cm Investigators believe that the theft of several ancient statues dating back to the Roman era from Syria’s national museum was likely the work of an individual, not an organized gang, officials said on Wednesday. The National Museum of Damascus was closed after the heist was discovered early on Monday. The museum had reopened in January as the country recovers from a 14-year civil war and the fall of the 54-year al-Assad dynasty last year. On Wednesday, a security vehicle was parked outside the main gate of the museum in central Damascus while security guards stood nearby. People were not allowed in because
RSS