Urged by leading US fashion industry and retail groups, the US Customs and Border Protection withheld release order to detain all cotton products produced in mainland China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. In their joint letter, the American Apparel & Footwear Association, the Footwear Distributors of America, the National Retail Federation, the Retail Industry Leaders Association and the United States Fashion Industry Association had urged the Congress to take action on imports from the XUAR.
The letter also urges for the development of a transparent, tiered, risk-based approach to enforce new forced labor; a clear, transparent and evidence-based process for implementing both current and future regulations; development and implementation of cost-effective technologies and innovative approaches for traceability; and establishment of the California Transparency in Supply Chains Act as the basis for the federal disclosure requirement on what companies are doing to prevent forced labour and human trafficking in their supply chains.
