For the first time, a steel manufacturer and a sweetener maker are banned from exporting their products to the United States.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on Oct. 2 added two Chinese companies to its list of firms prohibited from exporting their products to the United States. The move is part of a broader effort to protect U.S. supply chains from forced labor practices in China’s Xinjiang region.
“Today’s actions reaffirm our commitment to eliminating forced labor from U.S. supply chains and upholding our values of human rights for all,” Robert Silvers, undersecretary for policy at DHS, said in an Oct. 2 statement.
“No sector is off-limits,“ Silvers, who also oversees the federal task force responsible for making the entity list, said. ”We will continue to identify entities across industries and hold accountable those who seek to profit from exploitation and abuse.”
One of the companies targeted is Xinjiang Bayi Iron and Steel Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of the world’s biggest steel producer, China Baowu Steel Group Corp.
DHS officials allege that the company “repeatedly participated in the transfer and receipt of ethnic minorities” in Xinjiang, where the Chinese regime has subjected Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities to mass detention and surveillance.
The other company added to the list is Changzhou Guanghui Food Ingredients Co., Ltd., an artificial sweetener maker based in the eastern coastal province of Jiangsu. Information reviewed by U.S. officials indicated that this company sourced aspartame, a nonnutritive sweetener, and other materials from Xinjiang.
This marks the first time that the DHS has placed a steel manufacturer and a sweetener maker on its list of companies involved in the communist regime’s state-sponsored slave labor and abuses against the Uyghurs.
Previously targeted industries include business involved in mining metals, producing aluminum, manufacturing footwear, processing seafood, and making electronics.
With the addition of the two new companies, the total number of China-based companies on the list—created under the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act in 2021—has reached 75.
Both the Biden and Trump administrations have determined that “genocide” was taking place in Xinjiang, citing the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) detention of more than 1 million Uyghur Muslims through a sprawling network of internment camps.
Sen. James Risch (R-Idaho), who serves as ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, applauded Homeland Security’s decision, saying in a post on social media platform X that the United States will continue to hold China accountable for its “horrific human rights abuses.”
The Uyghur American Association, a Washington-based rights group, thanked the U.S. government in an Oct. 2 X post for placing the two Chinese companies on the banned list.
The U.N. Human Rights Office in 2022 found that Bejing’s abuses against Uyghurs may amount to “crimes against humanity” and warrant further investigation.
In August, the U.N. concluded that the CCP policies used to justify its repression against Uyghurs have remained in place.
Prominent Uyghurs such as Rahile Dawut, an ethnographer, and Ilham Tohti, an economics professor, have been sentenced to life in Chinese prisons.
Victims have described undergoing forced labor, forced abortions and sterilizations, political indoctrination, and other abuses during their time in detention.
Beijing has denied these allegations and has threatened to sanction U.S. and other foreign companies that seek to reduce reliance on Xinjiang as a source for their global supply chains.
Among Beijing’s latest targets is PVH Group, which owns clothing brands including Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger. In September, China’s commerce ministry initiated an investigation into PVH Group, accusing the U.S. retail giant of avoiding buying cotton and other products from Xinjiang.
The probe was carried out under the rules of Beijing’s “unreliable entities list“ working mechanism that could bar companies from doing business in China.
The PVH Group previously told The Epoch Times that the company maintains “strict compliance with all relevant laws and regulations in all countries and regions” where it operates and is in contact with China’s commerce ministry.