U.S. Launches Forced-Labour Probe Covering 60 Nations, Including Canada
U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration has launched probes into whether 60 trading partners including Canada are failing to block imports of goods made with forced labour – an effort that could spur countries into adopting a tougher line on China.
The investigations under Section 301 (b) of the Trade Act of 1974 could result in the United States imposing tariffs of as much as 25 per cent on goods from countries that it deems are falling short, analysts say.
The U.S. customs policy presumes all goods from the Xinjiang region of China are made with forced labour and requires shippers to provide “clear and convincing evidence” to the contrary. This “rebuttable presumption” means most if not all exports from Xinjiang are blocked from reaching the United States. Xinjiang is a major source of materials for clothing, solar panels and automobiles, among other products.
Human-rights groups and media reports say Beijing has subjected Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslim communities to forced labour.
Other Chinese exports such as seafood have also come under scrutiny for forced labour. The Outlaw Ocean Project, a journalism non-profit, in 2023 revealed alleged systemic abuses on board Chinese fishing vessels and documented the use of state-sponsored forced labour in seafood-processing plants in China that export to Canada.
Prime Minister Mark Carney, speaking to reporters during a visit to Norway Friday, said Canada has strong safeguards against importation of goods made with coerced labour.
“Canada has a comprehensive legal framework around that. We take it very seriously. There are strong provisions in Canadian law against forced labour, he said, adding “we expect those to be followed and when they’re not, they are prosecuted.”
But lawyers and activists say Canada could very likely be found to fall short under a U.S. assessment of whether Ottawa is successfully blocking imports of goods made with coerced labour from around the world.
“If the U.S. is wanting to penalize countries who have not effectively implemented and enforced forced-labour import bans, then Canada is indeed vulnerable,” said Georgina Alonso with Above Ground, a human-rights and corporate-accountability project.
“The Canadian government has recognized that there is forced labour in our supply chains and has put in place measures to address the problem, but has then done very little to enforce them.”
Ottawa amended the Customs Tariff Act on July 1, 2020, to prohibit forced-labour imports in keeping with a pledge made under the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement.
Canada Border Services Agency said Friday that since 2021, it has detained multiple shipments because of concerns that the goods might be the product of forced labour. Of these, two were ultimately blocked from entering Canada after CBSA determined they were produced with forced labour: a shipment of textile products in 2024 and a shipment of frozen seafood in 2025. Both were from China.
The agency said other detained shipments were either permitted entry after review of supply-chain information, abandoned by the importer or were shipped back to point of origin.
William Pellerin, a partner with McMillan LLP’s international trade group, said the CBSA has had great difficulty enforcing this ban because it’s hard to prove a product has been made with forced labour.
Mr. Pellerin said the U.S.’s approach to Chinese imports from Xinjiang is a “sledgehammer-type of tool” in that it likely blocks many products that are not made with forced labour. Canada’s strategy is more of a “scalpel approach,” but evidence suggests this isn’t really working, he said.
Mr. Trump and his team have made clear that they’re seeking to replace the hundreds of billions of dollars in lost revenues after the Supreme Court’s February ruling – which deemed that the President’s attempt to use an emergency-powers law to enact tariffs was not valid – by using different laws to establish new levies.
Mr. Pellerin, however, said he believes that these Section 301 probes are about steering U.S. trading partners to take a common approach to China.
“I think this is very much a way of the United States being aggressive on China and forcing the rest over the world to be aggressive on China,” he said.
Previous Section 301 investigations have resulted in tariffs on foreign imports of between 7.5 per cent and 25 per cent.
The list of 60 countries and economies includes some major U.S. trading partners and allies such as Australia, Canada, the European Union, Britain, Israel, India, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. China and Russia are also on the list.
“For too long, American workers and firms have been forced to compete against foreign producers who may have an artificial cost advantage gained from the scourge of forced labour,” Jamieson Greer, the United States Trade Representative, said in a statement Thursday.
Jillian Frank, a lawyer with KPMG Law, said that in 2026 the Department of Public Safety in Canada identified areas where there is a greater risk of forced labour in supply chains that stretch around the world and reached out to companies that operate in those areas. She said they include seafood, leather goods, clothing, electrical equipment and toys.
But, Ms. Frank said, “we have not seen an increase in enforcement action as a result of these outreach efforts.”
Canada under Mr. Carney recently reopened this country’s auto market to Chinese-made electric vehicles – another potential source of goods made with coerced work.
A 2024 Human Rights Watch report said major automakers including Tesla, BYD, GM, Toyota and Volkswagen are drawing aluminum from supply chains linked to Uyghur forced labour in Xinjiang.
With reports from Associated Press and Reuters
This article was first reported by The Globe and Mail
