Tackling Uygur forced labour in China a priority on Joe Biden’s trade agenda
- Administration will use ‘all available tools’ to combat Beijing’s ‘unfair’ trade practices, according to report by the Office of the US Trade Representative
- Biden’s USTR pick Katherine Tai says she ‘will not hesitate to act’ if talks with China prove ineffective
The administration of US President Joe Biden will use “all available tools” to combat China’s unfair trade practices and will prioritise addressing Beijing’s forced labour programme targeting Uygurs and other ethnic and religious minorities, the Office of the US Trade Representative said on Monday.
The administration “recognises that China’s coercive and unfair trade practices harm American workers, threaten our technological edge, weaken our supply chain resiliency, and undermine our national interests,” the USTR said in its report outlining the president’s trade policy agenda for this year.
The document largely formalises statements made in recent weeks by Biden and his USTR nominee Katherine Tai, who is awaiting Senate confirmation.
Tai said on Monday she would work to fight a range of “unfair” Chinese trade and economic practices and would seek to treat Chinese censorship as a trade barrier.
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US declares China has committed genocide in its treatment of Uygurs in Xinjiang
While noting that a review of US trade policy toward China is under way, the report said the one-month-old administration is “committed to using all available tools to take on the range of China’s unfair trade practices” including intellectual property theft, forced technology transfer and industrial subsidies.
