US adds 43 Chinese firms, aluminum makers to forced labor import list

The US government has added 43 Chinese companies, including major aluminum producers, to its Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act Entity List, an enforcement tool that bars goods linked to forced labor in Xinjiang from entering the United States.

Under the 2021 law, the Entity List creates a legal presumption that products made by listed companies involve forced labor and cannot be imported. The list now includes five major Xinjiang-based aluminum producers. In July 2024, the US government designated aluminum as a high-priority sector for enforcement of the law.

A February 2024 Human Rights Watch report found that Xinjiang accounts for more than 15 percent of China's aluminum production, or roughly 9 percent of global supply, and that aluminum producers there, along with the coal mines and power plants supplying them, have taken part in Chinese government labor-transfer programs coercing Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims into jobs. Aluminum from the region is used in automotive parts such as engine blocks, frames, wheels and battery foils exported to carmakers worldwide.

Read the full story at hrw.org.