Enforcing the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act

WASHINGTON, DC – With the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) signed into law last year, it will be vital that U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) implements the restrictions as intended and holds the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) accountable for its flagrant human rights violations. This legislation requires the Biden administration to take significant new action to prevent goods produced in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) of China, where state-sponsored forced labor is widespread, from entering U.S. markets.

Implementation of the UFLPA will be a key oversight priority of the Committee on Homeland Security. The enforcement of customs laws, specifically as they pertain to a geopolitical competitor manipulating the market through forced labor, is one of CBP’s oldest missions and critical for ensuring the economic security of the United States.

“China has shown it will stop at nothing to achieve its geopolitical goals,” said Ranking Member Katko. “After the Biden administration’s failure to lead on the world stage around the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics, the proper execution of the UFLPA presents another opportunity to hold China accountable. The United States cannot continue to depend on goods from China made artificially cheap by forced labor that blatantly violates human rights.”

“President Biden’s border crisis has diverted CBP’s valuable bandwidth away from its significant trade mission to ensure that global commerce continues to flow and that it does so in a transparent and efficient way within the requirements of the law,” Ranking Member Katko continued. “Every day that the Biden administration diverts key CBP resources, including personnel, away from their primary duties to deal with the surge at the southern border, they eliminate the agency’s ability to enforce vital customs laws.”

Read more about the importance of enforcing the UFLPA here.

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