The Trump administration since June has ramped up detentions of electronics, reportedly including components for solar panels, over possible links to forced labor in China, according to data from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP).
CBP data shows a rise since June in U.S. detentions of electronic shipments under the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA), a law aimed at preventing imports sourced with slave labor in China’s Xinjiang region, with a portion of the impounded imports reportedly including solar panel components, according to E&E News. From January to May, CBP intercepted $5.73 million worth of electronics imports, and the number surged to $15.67 million in June alone, CBP data states.
“It’s actually quite difficult to verify that any [solar imports] are exempt from slave labor,” Michael Lucci, CEO of State Armor, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “A lot of the industry for solar and for batteries is centered in Xinjiang, which is where two consecutive State Departments have concluded that there’s an ongoing genocide.”
Nearly half of the world’s supply for polysilicon, a key material of solar panels, comes from Xinjiang, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. The enforcement effort is reportedly slowing polysilicon cell imports, E&E News reported.
Though it is not clear how much of the halted electronic imports are related to solar materials, the green energy technology has been seized and linked to Chinese slave labor by CBP in previous years.
Reports from the United Nations and the Department of State have found that China is committing crimes against humanity in Xinjiang against the Uyghur Muslim population. Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo wrote in 2021 that China had subjected the Uyghur population to forced labor, forced sterilization and was committing an ongoing genocide.
Recent reports indicate that China has continued to use Uyghurs for slave labor, and that it has attempted to skirt U.S. forced labor laws by moving Uyghur Muslim workers to factories outside of the Xinjiang region.
Lucci told the DCNF that American dependence on China for solar materials helps enable slave labor while creating other concerning vulnerabilities.
In May, Reuters first reported that U.S. officials were finding “rogue communication devices” in Chinese solar panels not listed in product documents that could potentially be remotely triggered to trigger blackouts, which Lucci noted.
“It’s just one more piece of evidence that we shouldn’t be doing this type of business with them — we can’t trust them,” Lucci told the DCNF. “We can’t trust their system.”
The Trump administration has moved to clamp down on wind and solar technology that the Biden administration favored, citing concerns about reliability and dependency on foreign rivals for energy infrastructure.
“The relevant Xinjiang-related reports disregard the facts, maliciously smears [sic] the human rights situation in China’s Xinjiang, seriously violates [sic] international law and the basic norms governing international relations, and grossly interferes [sic] in China’s internal affairs. China expresses strong indignation and firm opposition to this,” the Chinese Embassy said in a statement to the DCNF. “The so-called claims of ‘forced labor’ and ‘genocide’ in Xinjiang are nothing but vicious lies concocted by anti-China forces. No one has ever been forcibly transferred out of China’s Xinjiang region under work programs.”
CBP did not respond to a request for comment.
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