China continues to expand its labor transfer programs for Uyghurs and other minorities, despite a recognition in the U.S. and elsewhere that the programs are a form of forced labor, a new report from the Jamestown Foundation said. "State work plans for this year mandate an intensification of employment requirements for the region’s targeted ethnic groups, and official labor transfer statistics reflect heightened work requirements first introduced in 2021," the report said. "Xinjiang’s focus on these requirements intensifies the region’s forced labor risk, extending it into higher-skilled sectors while concealing its coercive nature."
CBP has detained thousands of Porsche, Bentley and Audi cars in U.S. ports after a supplier to parent company Volkswagen found a "Chinese subcomponent" in the vehicles that violated the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, the Financial Times reported on Feb. 14. The delivery will be delayed until as late as the end of March, the paper said.
Mediterranean Shipping Co. (MSC) violated the Shipping Act by assessing detention and demurrage for periods that were outside the shipper’s control, shippers told the Federal Maritime Commission. The complaint, filed Feb. 14 by Impact Products and Safety Zone, both subsidiaries of Supply Source, alleged that MSC refused to divert shipments to less crowded ports and failed to extend the number of free days afforded when ports were congested from 2021 to 2022, leading to over $200,000 in financial damages.
Visual Comfort & Co. (VCC) filed an amended complaint against COSCO Shipping Lines Co., the Federal Maritime Commission said in a Feb. 14 Federal Register notice. In the complaint, which was filed with the FMC Feb. 6, VCC said that from January 2021 to December 2022, COSCO didn't divert shipments to less crowded ports or extend the number of free days when "circumstances outside VCC's control" affected the shipment, leading to more than $1 million in damages.
CBP issued the following releases on commercial trade and related matters:
CBP issued the following releases on commercial trade and related matters:
CBP in January identified 424 shipments valued at more than $236 million for further examination based on the suspected use of forced labor, including goods subject to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act and withhold release orders, the agency said in its most recent operational statistics update. The value of those shipments is up from December, when CBP identified 450 shipments worth more than $187 million (see 2401260077). Also in January, CBP seized 1,814 shipments that contained counterfeit goods valued at more than $718 million if the items had been genuine, the agency said.
CBP released a new guidance document Feb. 12 on how the agency sets bond amounts, replacing the bond directive it issued in 1991 with a new "Guide for the Public" that the agency has said will accompany a revised internal directive on bonds (see 2309150061).
The National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America is asking for more transparency around recent surcharges imposed by carriers, saying its members are seeing "sharply" increasing rates for shipping routes that never routed through the Red Sea or the Gulf of Aden (see 2402080083 and 2401050066).
More than a hundred organizations wrote an open letter calling upon governments to unite behind a “zero-tolerance” policy to deter attacks on vessels and seafarers in the Red Sea and “anywhere in the world.” The letter, dated Feb. 8, said that more than 30% of the world’s trade moves through the Red Sea and that the attacks have caused more than $80 billion in cargo to be “diverted” around the Cape of Good Hope.