The Senate Finance Committee is opening an investigation into whether major automakers such as Ford Motor Co., General Motors Co. Tesla Inc. are using parts produced with forced labor from China’s Xinjiang region.
“Unless due diligence confirms that components are not involved in forced labor, automakers cannot and should not Car sales in the United States includes ingredients mined or manufactured in Xinjiang,” Senator Ron Wyden, the committee’s chairman, wrote in a letter Thursday. “The United States considers the Chinese government’s brutal suppression of the Uighurs in Xinjiang an ‘ongoing genocide and crime against humanity’.”
Letters have also been sent to about half a dozen automakers including GMFord and Stellantis NV, according to a report from the UK’s Sheffield Hallam University, found a link between Chinese companies operating in Xinjiang and the import of parts from car manufacturers including the batterywiring and wheels, Wyden’s office said.
Representatives of GM, Ford and Stellantis, the companies that sell cars under Jeep car and Beat brand, there was no immediate response to a request for comment.
The commission’s investigation comes amid growing scrutiny of companies’ ties to China’s Xinjiang region, where the United States has accused China of ordering hundreds of thousands of people to be detained. keep – mainly Muslim Uighurs or other minorities – working against their will. Beijing has denied those allegations.
Under the Uighur Forced Labor Prevention Act, the US government holds that anything produced even partially in China’s Xinjiang manufacturing hub is produced using forced labor. forced and cannot be imported into the US. Companies can be exempted if they can provide “clear and convincing evidence” that the goods were not subject to duress.
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