Algeria, Argentina, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, the European Union, Israel, Japan… These economies are part of a list of 60 published by the White House as not having voted for or applied the ban on the import of products made with forced labor under Section 301 of the 1974 Trade Act, which allows the US President to sanction a country when they believe it is engaging in unfair competition. “The first US customs mechanism on forced labor dates back to 1930, but it was generally little used for 85 years,” notes Charles Autheman, international consultant and teacher of Business and Human Rights at HEC. “Until 2015 and its repeal by an act of Congress, the Consumptive Demand Clause hindered the use of the mechanism by conditioning the ban on the US market of goods made with forced labor on the existence of domestic production capable of satisfying US market demand. There were more goods bans afterwards, a retreat under Biden, and a new rebound during Trump’s second term,” the expert analyzes.
Yet, it was the Biden administration that, in 2021, passed the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, creating a rebuttable presumption that products from Xinjiang are made with forced labor. On September 3, 2026, the US House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party questioned the Department of Homeland Security on its implementation, particularly regarding investigative efforts and what is expected of companies in terms of value chain assessment.
