U.S. Targets Steel, Copper, Lithium Imports Under Uyghur Forced Labor Law

The Trump administration on Tuesday said it was targeting more imports of Chinese goods, including steel, copper and lithium, for high-priority enforcement over alleged human-rights abuses involving the Uyghurs.

The Department of Homeland Security, in a post on X, said it was also designating caustic soda and red dates for high-priority enforcement under the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act.

“The use of slave labor is repulsive and we will hold Chinese companies accountable for abuses and eliminate threats its forced labor practices pose to our prosperity,” U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said separately on X.

The Uyghur-related law restricts the import of goods tied to what the U.S. describes as China’s human-rights abuses and ongoing genocide in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.

U.S. authorities say Chinese authorities have established internment camps for Uyghurs and other religious and ethnic minority groups in China’s western Xinjiang region. Beijing has denied any abuses.

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The Chinese Communist Party has faced considerable backlash for nearly a decade over their efforts to detain the ethnic and religious minority Uyghurs.

“Treatment in the centers reportedly included food deprivation, psychological pressure, sexual abuse, medical neglect, torture, and forced labor,” notes Congress.gov. “Leaked Xinjiang police files, which included thousands of detainee records and images, important party directives, and police protocols, revealed the prison-like nature of the reeducation centers.”

Some detainees are forced to work in various industries, some of which are part of the global market.

In 2020, Disney was heavily criticized for filming part of the live-action “Mulan” movie in Xinjiang province, near where detainment facilities are reportedly located. The company even thanked the “publicity department of CPC Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Committee” and the “publicity department of CPC Turpan Municipal Committee” in the credits of the film.

(Reporting by Susan Heavey and Bhargav Acharya; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)