Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. SUOZZI. Madam Speaker, I thank Mr. Castro for yielding. I thank Mr. Smith for his great work on this, and Chairman Blumenauer for the work of the Committee of Ways and Means. And I thank Chairman McGovern as well.

Madam Speaker, I rise in strong support of this bipartisan Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act. We really need to wake people out of their torpor. It has been reported in the newspapers often, but I don't think most Americans realize exactly what is going on in China.

It was almost 50 years ago when Nixon first went to China. And we always believed, as Americans, that the more they are exposed to our way of life, our democracy, our economic system, the more they would become like us. That simply has not happened.

We have had hearings on the China Commission. We had a hearing the other day of the Committee on Ways and Means, and the witnesses testified not only about forced labor, which is clear, but they talked about crimes against humanity. They talked about forced sterilization. They talked about forcing people to eat pork, even though it violates their religion. They talked about prohibiting people from practicing their faith, attending religious ceremonies, observing fasts.

It is hard to imagine that in today's world that forced labor is happening and we know about it. We need to recognize that China has to be held accountable. We have rules in place now that say you can't use forced labor, but this bill is going a big step further in saying everything that comes out of the Xinjiang region will be presumed to be using forced labor. This is going to have a big impact. A lot of the cotton in the world comes from China; 84 percent of that cotton from China comes from the Xinjiang region. This will have an impact. We will have to support other countries to produce cotton. We will have to work to get the Northern Triangle, for example, to produce cotton so we can try and address those issues where our friends are. But we need to hold China and the Chinese Communist Party accountable for these violative acts of our very conscience. We have to do everything we can do to stand up for our values and to say this is simply unacceptable.

Madam Speaker, I ask my colleagues for their support.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source