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The Senate Finance Committee is probing eight major U.S. automakers, including General Motors and Ford, for the potential use of parts and materials obtained through the “rampant” use of Uyghur forced labor in China, according to a Thursday press release.
Democratic Committee Chair Ron Wyden of Oregon issued a letter to each automaker, asking them to clarify their supply chain’s relationship with the Xinjiang region of China, which he described as containing “rampant” forced labor, according to a press release. The letters — issued to Ford, General Motors, Dodge-maker Stellantis, Tesla, and the American arms of Honda, Mercedes-Benz, Toyota and Volkswagen, — reminded the companies that the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) bans companies from importing goods made in Xinjiang unless they can prove they were not made using forced labor.
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“Unless due diligence confirms that components are not linked to forced labor, automakers cannot and should not sell cars in the United States that include components mined or produced in Xinjiang,” Wyden wrote in the letters. “The United States considers the Chinese government’s brutal oppression of Uyghurs in Xinjiang an ‘ongoing genocide and crimes against humanity.’”
Sen. Wyden cites a December report from the Sheffield Hallam University Helena Kennedy Centre for International Justice, a British social justice and human rights advocacy organization, which alleges that the eight companies Wyden contacted, in addition to the French automaker Renault and Chinese automaker NIO, had multiple supply chain exposures to Uyghur forced labor.
