U.S. Sens. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Rick Scott (R-FL) introduced legislation that would require publicly traded companies to report on any aspect of their supply chain directly linked to products using forced labor from the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China.
Their bill — the Transaction and Sourcing Knowledge (TASK) Act (S. 4095) – would also direct the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to require public companies to report any transactions with Chinese Military-Industrial Complex Companies or companies placed on the Department of Commerce’s Entity List. They would also have to report if there is a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) committee within the operations of a publicly traded company with facilities in China.
“Far too many American corporations profit from slave labor in China,” Rubio said. “It is already illegal for these companies to import goods made with slave labor into the United States, and in two months, they will be prohibited from importing any goods from Xinjiang unless they can prove there is no slave labor. These companies must be transparent with their shareholders by disclosing the risks associated with products linked to Xinjiang and with companies complicit in genocide and the use of slave labor.”
Sens. Mike Braun (R-IN), Bill Hagerty (R-TN), Ted Cruz (R-TX), and Joni Ernst (R-IA) are cosponsors of the bill.