NCTO and Applied DNA Sciences Featured in Wall Street Journal Video on Banned Chinese Cotton Continuing to Flow into the U.S. Market

The Wall Street Journal posed a critical question in a new video out on “Why Banned Cotton From China is So Hard to Keep Out of the U.S.”

The video, which is posted on the Wall Street Journal’s website here, features NCTO President and CEO Kim Glas and NCTO member, Applied DNA Sciences President and CEO James Hayward.

It traces the Chinese cotton supply chain, which is under fire globally for utilizing illegal forced labor, and highlights how contradictory government policies and insufficient enforcement have failed to prevent cotton apparel made with forced labor in Xinjiang, China from entering the U.S. market.

There is no doubt that the cotton apparel made with forced labor in Xinjiang, China and imported to the U.S. is severely impacting the competitiveness of the U.S. textile industry. 

In fact, the low level of enforcement by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is extremely concerning, given that legislation known as the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA), which bans the importation of imported products made by forced labor, was implemented 14 months ago.

At the same time, nearly 3 million shipments per day come into this country under the Section 321 de minimis mechanism, largely uninspected and duty free, which gives China another backdoor to our market and rewards their predatory trade practices.

NCTO is calling for stepped up enforcement of the UFLPA and closure of the “de minimis” loophole, which facilitates this trade and gives China duty-free backdoor access to the U.S. market.

In the video, the Wall Street Journal “unpacks the complexity of the supply chain to explain why experts believe much of the cotton is still making its way to the U.S.”