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    U.S. Bans Imports From 3 Chinese Companies Over Ties to Forced Labor

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    The government targeted companies involved in making seafood, aluminum and footwear, citing their links to labor programs affecting Chinese minorities.The Department of Homeland Security on Tuesday added three Chinese companies to a list of firms whose products can no longer be exported to the United States, as part of what it described as an escalating crackdown on companies that aid in forced labor programs in Xinjiang.The companies include a seafood processor, Shandong Meijia Group, that an investigation by the Outlaw Ocean Project identified as a business employing laborers brought to eastern China from Xinjiang — a far-western region of China where the government has detained and surveilled large numbers of minorities, including Uyghurs.Another firm, Xinjiang Shenhuo Coal and Electricity, is an aluminum processor whose metal can be found in cars, consumer electronics and other products, a U.S. official said. The third, Dongguan Oasis Shoes, brought Uyghurs and people from other persecuted groups to its footwear factory in Guangdong, the U.S. government said.With those additions, 68 companies now appear on the so-called entity list of firms that the U.S. government says participate in forced labor programs, nearly double the number at the beginning of the year.Robert Silvers, an under secretary at the Department of Homeland Security who is chair of a committee overseeing the list, said that the government was accelerating the pace of additions to the list, and that the public should expect that to continue.“We are going to hold companies to account if they engage in forced labor practices,” he said.Industries using cotton and tomatoes were among the first to reckon with links in their supply chains to fields in Xinjiang. But in more recent years, companies making solar panels, flooring, cars, electronics, seafood and other goods have discovered that they, too, use components that were made in Xinjiang.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    U.A.W. Reaches Accord on Pay and Safety at E.V. Battery Plant

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    The agreement, if ratified, will cover 1,600 workers making batteries for General Motors in Ohio. The union said it would be a model for efforts elsewhere.The United Automobile Workers union on Monday announced a tentative contract agreement at an Ohio factory making batteries for electric vehicles, a step that it called a milestone in enhancing pay and safety in the E.V. supply chain.The accord covers 1,600 workers at a Lordstown plant operated by Ultium Cells, a joint venture between General Motors and a South Korean partner, LG Energy Solution. It produces batteries for G.M. electric vehicles.The workers had not been unionized when the plant opened in 2022, but they were brought into the U.A.W. under the terms of the national contract the union negotiated with G.M. last fall. This new contract, subject to ratification by the plant’s workers, defines wages and working conditions specific to that location.Shawn Fain, the U.A.W. president, said in a letter to union members that the accord was “a game changer for the electric vehicle battery industry.”G.M. and Ultium issued statements saying they were pleased with the agreement.The union said it planned to use the Ultium Cells contract as a template as it negotiated local agreements at other battery plants that G.M. and its Detroit rivals are building. G.M. started production this year at a battery plant in Spring Hill, Tenn., and has another under construction in Lansing, Mich.Ford Motor plans two battery plants in Kentucky, one in Tennessee and one in Michigan. Stellantis, the maker of Chrysler, Jeep, Dodge, and Ram vehicles, plans two battery plants in Indiana. Aside from one Ford location, those plants involve joint ventures that were brought under the U.A.W. umbrella under the national contracts the union signed with Ford and Stellantis last fall.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    U.S. Adds Tariffs to Shield Struggling Solar Industry

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    American solar manufacturers are pushing for further protections for their new factories against cheaply priced imports from China.Tariffs aimed at protecting America’s solar industry from foreign competition snapped back into place on Thursday, ending a two-year pause that President Biden approved as part of his effort to jump-start solar adoption in the U.S.The tariffs, which will apply to certain solar products made by Chinese companies in Southeast Asia, kicked in at a moment of growing global concern about a surge of cheap Chinese solar products that are undercutting U.S. and European manufacturers.The Biden administration has been trying to build up America’s solar industry by offering tax credits, and companies have announced more than 30 new U.S. manufacturing investments in the past year. But U.S. solar companies say they are still struggling to survive as competitors in China and Southeast Asia flood the global market with solar panels that are being sold at prices far below what American firms need to charge to stay in business.That has forced President Biden to make an uncomfortable choice: Continue welcoming inexpensive imports that are helping the United States transition away from fossil fuels, or block them to protect new U.S. solar factories that are benefiting from taxpayer money.The tariffs that take effect Thursday encapsulated that dilemma. The levies, which apply to certain solar products coming to the United States from Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia and Vietnam, were approved two years ago, after U.S. officials ruled that some Chinese firms were trying to dodge preexisting American tariffs on China by routing solar panels through other countries. The exact tariff rate depends on the company but could be more than 250 percent.The Chinese firms had set up factories in Southeast Asia, but Commerce Department officials said that some were not doing substantial manufacturing there. Rather, they were using sites in those countries to make minor changes to Chinese-made solar products, and then shipping them to the United States tariff-free, the ruling decided.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    The Floating Traffic Jam That Freaked Us All Out

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    Southern California appeared to be under siege from a blockade.More than 50 enormous vessels bobbed in the frigid waters of the Pacific Ocean, marooned off the twin ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, Calif. As days stretched into weeks, they waited their turn to pull up to the docks and disgorge their cargo. Rubberneckers flocked to the water’s edge with binoculars, trying to count the ships that stretched to the inky horizon.This was no act of war. This was what it looked like when the global economy came shuddering to a halt.It was October 2021, and the planet had been seized by the worst pandemic in a century. International commerce was rife with bewildering dysfunction. Basic geography itself seemed reconfigured, as if the oceans had stretched wider, adding to the distance separating the factories of China from the superstores of the United States.Given the scale of container ships — the largest were longer than four times the height of the Statue of Liberty — any single vessel held at anchor indicated that enormous volumes of orders were not reaching their intended destinations. The decks of the ships were stacked to the skies with containers loaded with the components of contemporary life — from clothing and electronics to drums full of chemicals used to concoct other products like paint and pharmaceuticals.Japanese Kit Kats on a shelf at 99 Ranch Market in Gardena, Calif.Adam Amengual for The New York TimesThe Port of Los Angeles.Erin Schaff/The New York TimesAmong the ships held in the queue was the CSCL Spring, a Hong Kong-flagged vessel that was carrying a whopping 138 containers from Yihai Kerry International, a major Chinese agricultural conglomerate. Together, they held 7.3 million pounds of canola meal pellets — enough animal feed to sustain 20,000 cows for a week. Their delay was exacerbating shortages of feed afflicting livestock producers in the United States.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    U.S. Accuses Hyundai and Two Other Companies of Using Child Labor

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    The Labor Department filed a lawsuit accusing Hyundai, one of its suppliers and a staffing company of jointly employing a 13-year-old on an auto body parts assembly line in Alabama.The Labor Department on Thursday sued Hyundai over the use of child labor in Alabama, holding the car manufacturer liable for the employment of children in its supply chain, including a 13-year-old girl who worked up to 60 hours per week making car parts.In the suit, filed in a federal court in Montgomery, Ala., the department said Hyundai was responsible for the employment of children at a Smart Alabama factory in Luverne, Ala., which produces parts like body panels that are shipped to a Hyundai factory in Montgomery. The suit also claimed a staffing agency, Best Practice Service, recruited the children to work at the supplier’s plant.In a statement, Hyundai said child labor was “not consistent with the standards and values we hold ourselves to as a company.” It added that the Labor Department used “an unprecedented legal theory that would unfairly hold Hyundai accountable for the actions of its suppliers.”Smart did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Representatives of Best Practice Service, which is no longer in business, could not be reached for comment.From July 2021 to February 2022, a 13-year-old girl worked at the Smart plant, where she was recruited to work by Best Practice Service, the suit claimed. The suit also contended that two other children were employed at the plant.The Labor Department said that through the employment of children at its supplier, Hyundai was in violation of the “hot goods” provision of the Fair Labor Standards Act, which prevents the interstate commerce of goods “that were produced in violation of the minimum wage, overtime or child labor provisions” of that law.“Companies cannot escape liability by blaming suppliers or staffing companies for child labor violations when they are in fact also employers themselves,” said Seema Nanda, the Labor Department’s chief legal officer, in a statement Thursday.The suit comes after investigations by Reuters and The New York Times documented the use of child labor by the suppliers of car companies. In 2022, Reuters found that Smart Alabama had used child labor at its facility, and that Kia, which is part of the same South Korean conglomerate as Hyundai, had also used child labor in the South. A 2023 investigation by The Times found children employed at the suppliers of General Motors and Ford Motor.Hyundai imports many of its vehicles from South Korea but has made big investments in factories in the South, spending nearly $8 billion on an electric vehicle plant in Georgia. The United Automobile Workers union has said it hopes to organize workers at Hyundai’s Montgomery plant. More

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    Senate Inquiry Finds BMW Imported Cars Tied to Forced Labor in China

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    The report also found that Jaguar Land Rover and Volkswagen bought parts from a supplier the U.S. government had singled out for its practices in Xinjiang.A congressional investigation found that BMW, Jaguar Land Rover and Volkswagen purchased parts that originated from a Chinese supplier flagged by the United States for participating in forced labor programs in Xinjiang, a far western region of China where the local population is subject to mass surveillance and detentions.Both BMW and Jaguar Land Rover continued to import components made by the Chinese company into the United States in violation of American law, even after they were informed in writing about the presence of banned products in their supply chain, the report said.BMW shipped to the United States at least 8,000 MINI vehicles containing the part after the Chinese supplier was added in December to a U.S. government list of companies participating in forced labor. Volkswagen took steps to correct the issue.The investigation, which began in 2022 by the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Ron Wyden of Oregon, a Democrat, highlights the risk for major automakers as the United States tries to enforce a two-year-old law aimed at blocking goods from Xinjiang. The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act bars goods made in whole or in part in Xinjiang from being imported to the United States, unless the importer can prove that they were not made with forced labor.In a statement, Mr. Wyden said that “automakers are sticking their heads in the sand and then swearing they can’t find any forced labor in their supply chains.”“Somehow, the Finance Committee’s oversight staff uncovered what multibillion-dollar companies apparently could not: that BMW imported cars, Jaguar Land Rover imported parts, and VW AG manufactured cars that all included components made by a supplier banned for using Uyghur forced labor,” he added. “Automakers’ self-policing is clearly not doing the job.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Europe Wants to Build a Stronger Defense Industry, but Can’t Decide How

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    Conflicting political visions, competitive jockeying and American dominance stand in the way of a more coordinated and efficient military machine.France and Germany’s recent agreement to develop a new multibillion-dollar battlefield tank together was immediately hailed by the German defense minister, Boris Pistorius, as a “breakthrough” achievement.“It is a historic moment,” he said.His gushing was understandable. For seven years, political infighting, industrial rivalry and neglect had pooled like molasses around the project to build a next-generation tank, known as the Main Combat Ground System.Russia’s invasion of Ukraine more than two years ago jolted Europe out of complacency about military spending. After defense budgets were cut in the decades that followed the Soviet Union’s collapse, the war has reignited Europe’s efforts to build up its own military production capacity and near-empty arsenals.But the challenges that face Europe are about more than just money. Daunting political and logistical hurdles stand in the way of a more coordinated and efficient military machine. And they threaten to seriously hobble any rapid strengthening of Europe’s defense capabilities — even as tensions between Russia and its neighbors ratchet up.“Europe has 27 military industrial complexes, not just one,” said Max Bergmann, a program director at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which will celebrate its 75th anniversary this summer, still sets the overall defense strategy and spending goals for Europe, but it doesn’t control the equipment procurement process. Each NATO member has its own defense establishment, culture, priorities and favored companies, and each government retains final say on what to buy.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    U.S. Awards $120 Million to Polar Semiconductor to Expand Chip Facility

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    The grant is the latest federal award in a series stemming from the CHIPS and Science Act meant to ramp up domestic production of vital semiconductors.Federal officials will provide up to $120 million in grants to Polar Semiconductor to help the company expand its chip manufacturing facility in Minnesota, the Biden administration announced on Monday, the latest in a string of awards meant to strengthen the U.S. supply of semiconductors.Commerce Department officials said the grant would help Polar upgrade technology and double production capacity at its facility in Bloomington, Minn., within two years. The company produces chips that are critical for cars, defense systems and electrical grids, federal officials said.“We are making taxpayer dollars go as far as possible while crowding in private and state investment to create jobs, secure our supply chains and bolster manufacturing in Minnesota,” said Laurie Locascio, the under secretary of commerce for standards and technology.The funding stems from the bipartisan CHIPS and Science Act, which lawmakers passed in 2022 to ramp up the domestic production of commercial semiconductors, the tiny chips crucial for most electronics, including smartphones, computers, cars and weapons systems. The law gave the Commerce Department $39 billion to distribute to companies to incentivize the construction and expansion of new plants in the United States.Scaling up domestic chip production is a major component of President Biden’s economic policy agenda, which largely focuses on bolstering American manufacturing and bringing back jobs that have shifted overseas. Only about 10 percent of the world’s semiconductors are produced in the United States, down from about 37 percent in 1990.Biden administration officials have so far announced awards of more than $29 billion. Last month, the Commerce Department announced up to $6.1 billion in grants to Micron to help the chipmaker build plants in New York and Idaho. Other chipmakers — including Samsung, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company and Intel — have received multibillion-dollar awards. GlobalFoundries, Microchip Technology and BAE Systems received the first three federal awards.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More