US blocks import of certain Chinese goods over mistreatment of Uighur Muslims

‘This is modern-day slavery,’ said Cuccinelli of the Department of Homeland Security

CHINA-USA/DEFENCE Representational Image | Reuters

The United States has announced that it will ban exports from China’s Xinjiang region over the encampment of Uyghur Muslims and their mistreatment. China’s use of forced labour to make these items on a ‘vocational’ centre has been condemned by the US, which has long since had tensions with the nation over several other issues including China’s lack of transparency on the origin of the coronavirus.

The export ban includes garments, cotton, computer parts and hair products from five entities in Xinjiang as well as nearby Anhui province.

It stops short of a wider regional ban, a BBC report reads.

“These extraordinary human rights violations demand an extraordinary response,” Kenneth Cuccinelli, the Department of Homeland Security’s acting secretary said.

“This is modern-day slavery,” Cuccinelli added.

Cuccinelli said besides imposing the ‘Withhold Release Orders’ (WROs) against these entities, the Homeland Security department was also conducting a legal analysis of the region-wide import ban.

Officials in the know about Trump administration’s decision-making process said concerns about the export ban and their effect on supply chains were raised by officials, including Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue.

As per the Phase 1 trade deal China had agreed to buy increased quantities of US cotton, which could be put at risk by US’ ban on imports from China’s dominant cotton-producing region.

At the camps, China claims is a site providing job training, has separated thousands of children from their parents and several women have been forcefully subjected to birth control methods.

Mark A. Morgan, acting commissioner of US Customers and Border Protection agency was quoted in a Reuters report as saying, “The Trump administration will not stand idly by and allow foreign companies to subject vulnerable workers to forced labour while harming American businesses that respect human rights and the rule of law.”

Cotton from the Xinjiang region is used by other countries like Vietnam, Indonesia, Cambodia, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka to make clothing.

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