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The administration of US President Donald Trump raised economic pressure on China’s western Xinjiang region, 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) agency said on Wednesday that its “Release Hold Order” would ban cotton and cotton products from the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (XPCC), one of the largest producers. from China.
The move, which could have a radical effect on companies involved in selling textiles and apparel to the U.S., is one of several the Trump administration has been working on in recent weeks to toughen the law. US position against China, making it more difficult for the president. elect Joe Biden to ease tensions between the United States and China.
The goal of XPCC, which produced 30 percent of China’s cotton in 2015, follows a July Treasury Department ban on all dollar transactions with the expanding company and the paramilitary entity, founded in 1954 to settle the far west China.
‘Serious violations of human rights’
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kenneth Cuccinelli, who oversees the border agency, called Made in China a “warning label.”
“The cheap cotton items you may be buying for family and friends during this donation season, if they come from China, may have been made by slave labor in some of the most egregious human rights violations in the world today. modern, “he said. a press conference.
Cuccinelli said an import ban on Xinjiang cotton throughout the region is still under consideration.
Watchtowers at a high-security facility near what is believed to be a re-education camp where people from Muslim ethnic minorities are imprisoned on the outskirts of Hotan, in China’s northwest Xinjiang region. [File: Greg Baker/AFP]
The United Nations cites what it says are credible reports that one million Muslims held in camps have been put to work. China denies mistreating the Uyghurs, saying the camps are vocational training centers needed to fight “extremism.”
At a press conference in Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said that US politicians are fabricating news about forced labor in Xinjiang. He added that US practices undermine market principles and would deprive people of jobs.
The XPCC could not be immediately reached for comment, according to the Reuters news agency. The National Council of Textiles and Apparel of China declined to comment and the China Cotton Textiles Association could not be immediately reached, Reuters reported.
Wide effects
While the Treasury sanctions target XPCC’s financial structure, Wednesday’s action will force apparel companies and other companies that ship cotton products to the US to phase out multi-stage XPCC-produced cotton lint. their supply chains, said Brenda Smith, CBP’s executive assistant commissioner of commerce.
“That blocks virtually all cotton textile imports from China,” said a China-based cotton trader, who asked not to be named due to the sensitivity of the issue.
Identifying cotton from a specific supplier will significantly increase manufacturing costs, and only the few large companies with fully integrated operations in the complex textile supply chain could guarantee that no XPCC products were used, the trader said.
“It really depends on how much evidence they want. If they want real proof that this cotton has not been used, it will be very difficult, ”he added.
Well-known clothing brands, such as Gap Inc, Patagonia Inc, and Zara’s owner, Inditex, have told the Thomson Reuters Foundation that they did not source from factories in Xinjiang, but could not confirm that their supply chains were cotton-free. collected in the region.
In September, CBP considered a much broader import ban on all cotton and tomato products from Xinjiang, but after dissent within the Trump administration, it announced tighter bans on products from specific entities, including two smaller producers of cotton and clothing.
Intertwined supply chains
American apparel makers had criticized a broader ban as unenforceable, but retail and apparel groups on Wednesday welcomed the specific XPCC 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 that forced labor does not contaminate our supply chains or enter the United States. ”.
A cotton farm on the outskirts of Hami, China’s Xinjiang province [File: Stringer/Reuters]
The US action could potentially affect clothing exports from other Asian producers such as Bangladesh, Vietnam and Cambodia, if they contain cotton from China, according to Sheng Lu, an associate professor in the Department of Fashion and Apparel Studies at the University of Delaware.
“Cotton made by XPCC is used in garment factories across China and exported to other garment-producing countries,” he told the Bloomberg news agency.
The United States imported about $ 11 billion worth of cotton textile and apparel products from China in 2019, but depending on how US Customs enforces this order, it could target a much wider range of products, he said. Mon The order also sends a strong signal that the issue of forced labor in Xinjiang is not over yet and there could be other actions in the future, he said.
Biden has vowed to work with America’s allies to pressure China to stop trade and human rights abuses. Trump in recent weeks has increased actions against major Chinese state-owned companies, banning access to American technology and investments.
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