This bill could & likely will dramatically upend how Americans source any goods that they may import from China, since it pretty much bans outright goods produced in Xinjiang or goods produced with materials from Xinjiang on the presumption that said goods were produced by forced labor. Most Chinese cotton emanates from this region, as does a substantial amount of Chinese coal, so this'll be a big story to watch over Q2-Q3 of 2022, when its previsions start coming into effect:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/biden-uyghur-labor-law/2021/12/23/99e8d048-6412-11ec-a7e8-3a8455b71fad_story.htmlPresident Biden on Thursday signed into law the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, a bipartisan bill that bans imports from China's Xinjiang region unless the importer can prove they were not made with forced labor.
The House and the Senate passed the measure last week. Lawmakers from both parties welcomed Biden's signing of the law, with Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), a co-sponsor of the legislation, saying in a statement that it "sends a powerful, bipartisan message that the United States will not turn a blind eye" to China's violations of human rights.
"The United States must send a resounding and unequivocal message against genocide and slave labor wherever these evils appear," said Merkley, who is also chairman of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China. "Now that the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act has reached President Biden's desk and been signed into law, we can finally ensure that American consumers and businesses can buy goods without inadvertent complicity in China's horrific human rights abuses."
Biden thanked Merkley and the legislation's other three sponsors - Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) and Rep. Christopher H. Smith (R-N.J.) - as well as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) for their work in pushing the measure forward.
