The Trump administration expanded economic pressure on China's western region of Xinjiang on Wednesday, banning cotton imports from a powerful Chinese quasi-military organisation that it says uses the forced labour of detained Uighur Muslims, reports Reuters.
The US Customs and Border Protection agency said the "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 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 President-elect Joe Biden to ease US-China tensions.
The targeting of XPCC, which produced 30 per cent of China's cotton in 2015, follows the US Treasury Department's move in July to ban all dollar transactions with the entity, founded in 1954 to settle China's far west.
While the Treasury sanctions target XPCC's financial structure, the CBP action will force apparel firms and other companies importing cotton products into the United States to eliminate XPCC-produced cotton fibre from many layers of their supply chains, said Brenda Smith, CBP's executive assistant commissioner for trade.
CBP has the authority to detain shipments based on suspicion of forced-labour involvement under long-standing US laws to combat human trafficking, child labour and other human rights abuses.
In September, CBP had 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.
US Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kenneth Cuccinelli, who oversees the border agency, told a news conference a Xinjiang region-wide cotton import ban was still being studied. Cuccinelli called 'Made in China' a 'warning label.'
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