Ensuring That Goods Made with Forced Labor in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China Do Not Enter the United States Market

Floor Speech

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Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, we have come down to the floor multiple times in the last few weeks trying to push the passage of our bipartisan Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act.

For those who are not familiar with it at this point, it basically says that you can't import products into the United States that are made by slave labor in Xinjiang or entities that are associated with the government of that region. If you are a company that is manufacturing in that area, you need to prove that slaves didn't make it; the presumption is on you.

It is already illegal, by the way, to bring goods made with slave labor. It has been that way since the thirties. Yet it still happens, and we know it is happening at an alarming, horrific rate, with the genocide that we now witness being carried out by the Chinese Government in the Xinjiang region.

This bill, which we hope, here in a few moments, passes today, will head to the President and will become law, and it will help tremendously in stopping that from happening.

Many companies have already taken steps to clean up their supply chains, and, frankly, they should have no concerns about this law. Yet for those that have not done that, they will no longer be able to continue to make Americans--every one of us, frankly--unwitting accomplices in the atrocities and genocide that are being committed by the Chinese Communist Party.

6256, which was received from the House; that the bill be considered read a third time and passed; and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.
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