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Senate unanimously passes bipartisan bill banning imports from Xinjiang, China

by Karen Faulkner, Worthy News Correspondent

(Worthy News) – The United States Senate unanimously passed a bipartisan bill on Wednesday that would ban the importation of anything made in Xinjiang, China, including Nike and Coca-Cola products made there, because of the forced labor and genocide of Uyghurs and other minorities in the region, Axios reports. The legislation now goes to the House on a date to be decided.

Products from Xinjiang are integral to the global supply chains of giant companies like Nike and Coca-Cola, both of which have lobbied against the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, Axios said.

The Senate bill passed on Wednesday was introduced by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), who introduced the legislation with Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Axios reports. In a statement, Rubio said the message to Beijing “and any international company that profits from forced labor in Xinjiang is clear: no more.”

In a separate statement, Merkley noted that Uyghurs and other minorities in Xinjiang “are being forced into labor, tortured, imprisoned, forcibly sterilized, and pressured to abandon their religious and cultural practices by the Chinese government.” Accordingly, Merkley added: “No American corporation should profit from these abuses. No American consumers should be inadvertently purchasing products from slave labor.”

Having intensified sanctions against China in recent weeks, on Tuesday the Biden administration published an advisory that companies doing business in Xinjiang run a “high risk” of violating U.S. laws on forced labor, Axios said.