Rep. Greer on New Tariffs on 60 Economies Amid Forced Labor: Making Sure That Our Workers and Companies Compete on a Level Playing Field

EXCERPT:

GREER: “So, the keyword here is forced labor. Here in the United. States, for 100 years almost, we’ve had a law that says if something is made overseas with forced labor, slave labor, child labor, you can’t ship it into the United States. It’s prohibited. And so, we stop this at the border. We prevent it. We’re the only country in the world that has this kind of law and effectively enforces it, believe it or not. And so, what we’ve done under Section 301, which is a law that the Supreme Court has pointed to, that the president used before to put tariffs on China, we investigated 60 economies to assess whether they have these types of laws and whether they implement them. And we found that only a handful had — have this and they didn’t implement them, and then the rest of them didn’t have them at all. And so, we’re taking action to make sure that our workers and companies can compete on a level playing field. So, if we’re shipping into Australia or some other place where they allow the import of goods with forced labor, we’re going to make sure that we have a level playing field.”