Importers who don’t adequately audit their supply chains risk detention of goods as well as harm to reputation if there is a reasonable suspicion that products they want to bring into the U.S. were produced with forced labor.
Under the recently enacted Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act of 2015, imports made with forced labor are no longer allowed into the U.S. The amendment to a decades old statute—the 1930 Tariff Act—closed a loophole that allowed such imports to enter the U.S. market to meet U.S. consumptive demand.
The loophole’s removal is a “game-changer” that opens up new possibilities in...