Sen. Rick Scott is lobbying the Trump administration to reverse forced-labor tariff carve-outs for pharmaceuticals, proposing placing duties on drugs linked to China’s use of Uyghur forced labor.
In the Florida Republican’s Monday letter to U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, he suggested imposing duties on generic pharmaceuticals and ingredients produced with forced labor or state-supported market distortions, such as subsidies.
The senator said such duties would help counteract unfair trade practices, reduce dependence on foreign supply chains and support the development of domestic pharmaceutical manufacturing.
Mr. Scott cited reports suggesting that suppliers in the U.S. generic drug market may use Uyghur forced labor in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. One of the suppliers is Sinopharm, the largest Chinese state-owned pharmaceutical conglomerate and an FDA-registered drug importer.
He encouraged the Trump administration to impose Section 301 tariffs — investigations and import restrictions on foreign nations engaging in “unfair” practices that burden U.S. commerce — on generic pharmaceuticals from China and any other country engaging in “predatory forced labor practices.”
The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act says any goods wholly or partly made in Xinjiang, or made by a company on the Entity List, are assumed to involve forced labor and are barred from entering the U.S.
The list has 144 entities, but only one of 43 licensed Xinjiang pharmaceutical companies is included, despite the law’s presumption that Xinjiang-made goods involve forced labor.
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative’s proposed rule exempts pharmaceuticals from certain tariffs — the carve-out Mr. Scott is asking Mr. Greer to undo.
Using 10% and 12.5% tariff tiers provides a “critical defense of American commerce,” Mr. Scott said, urging Mr. Greer to set another category of duties above the proposed 12.5% rate to apply to the most “egregious participants in forced labor use.”
“China’s reputation as both a trade cheat and a human rights violator remains unparalleled in the global economy,” Mr. Scott wrote in the letter, adding, “Through its proud endorsement and utilization of slave labor, Communist China has routinely cheated its way to dominance in several key global supply chains — often by disregarding the intrinsic human dignity of individual market participants.”
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