WASHINGTON — The Trump administration on Tuesday announced it is holding imports of clothing, gold, diamonds and other items believed to have been produced with forced labor by companies based in Brazil, China and Malaysia as well as some gold mined in eastern Congo and diamonds from a region in Zimbabwe.
An official at U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Brenda Smith, said her agency issued orders to immediately detain the goods at U.S. ports of entry for further investigation. The move comes amid a wide-ranging trade dispute between the U.S. and China, which has led to new tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of goods.
Smith says the “message here is that one of the ways the U.S. and China can collaborate together is to ensure that forced labor is not used.”
