US Senate passes bill to ban all products from China's Xinjiang

The US Senatepassed legislation on Wednesday tobanthe import ofproductsfromChina'sXinjiangregion, the latest effort in Washington to punish Beijing for what USofficials say is an ongoing genocide against Uyghursand other muslim groups.

The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act would create a "rebuttable presumption" assuming goods manufactured inXinjiangare made with forced labor and thereforebanned under the 1930 Tariff Act, unless otherwise certified by US authorities.

Passed by unanimousconsent, the bipartisan measure would shift the burden of proof to importers. The current rulebans goods if there is reasonable evidence of forced labor.

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Thebillmust also pass the house of representatives before it can be sent to the White House for President Joe Biden to sign into law. It was not immediately clear when that might take place.

Republican Senator Marco Rubio, who introduced the legislation with Democrat Jeff Merkley, called on the House to act quickly.

"We will not turn a blind eye to the CCP's ongoing crimes against humanity, and we will notallow corporations a free pass to profitfromthose horrific abuses," Rubio said in a statement.

"No American corporation should profitfromthese abuses. No American consumers should be inadvertently purchasingproductsfromslave labor," Merkley said.

Democratic and Republican aides said they expected the measure would get strong support in the House, noting the House approved a similar measure nearly unanimously last year.

Thebillwould go beyond steps already taken to secure U.S. supply chains in the face ofallegations of rights abuses in China, including existingbans onXinjiangtomatoes, cotton and some solarproducts.

The Biden administration has increased sanctions, and on Tuesday issued an advisory warning businesses they could be in violation of USlaw if operations are linked even indirectly to surveillance networks inXinjiang.

Rights groups, researchers, former residents and some Western lawmakers and officials sayXinjiangauthorities have facilitated forced labor by detaining around a million Uyghurs and other primarily Muslim minorities since 2016.