... The US government has taken some steps to block such imports…

Enforcement could be stronger – members of Congress fear that many goods made in Xinjiang are slipping by, especially as companies try to launder products through firms outside of China – but this presumptive bar is a powerful policy. The act also creates an “Entity List” for companies believed tainted by Uyghur forced labor. Clearly a good part of China’s seafood processing industry belongs on that list. Targeted sanctions should also be imposed on the officials and companies involved, as the separate Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act requires.

Neither the British government nor the European Union has followed Washington’s lead in restricting Uyghur forced labor by creating a presumption against imports from Xinjiang. The British government imposed targeted sanctions on four individuals and one company, but hid behind the impenetrability of the system to avoid doing more. A parliamentary bill proposing a presumptive ban is going nowhere.

The EU is planning to ban all products of forced labor – a good generic policy – but, again, without a presumptive bar for Xinjiang. In the meantime, while exports from Xinjiang to the US plummeted, exports to the European Union increased by a third in 2022…