AMB. GREER: Setting The Washington Post Straight On Trump’s Fight Against Forced Labor

Editor’s Note: Below is the full and unaltered Letter to the Editor authored by Ambassador Jamieson Greer, the United States Trade Representative, and sent to The Washington Post in response to an editorial issued on June 3 by the newspaper’s editorial board. Unfortunately, the newspaper would only publish Ambassador Greer’s response in heavily edited form.

The Post argues that President Donald Trump and Ambassador Greer should not use trade enforcement tools to combat trade in goods made with forced labor, despite acknowledging forced labor is “an abhorrent practice.” The newspaper’s editorial board appears to take issue with the president’s use of Section 301 investigations to identify and remedy unfair trading practices, and with the investigations’ proposed responsive action — which includes tariffs on the investigated economies. The Section 301 statute (Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, as amended) is a tool that Congress designed to identify and help eliminate unfair trading practices, and the statute permits the imposition of tariffs, among other responsive actions, to accomplish that goal.

Letter:

Only the Washington Post Editorial Board would find a way to advocate for a laissez-faire approach to modern slavery. Specifically, the Board’s June 3 editorial opposes President Donald J. Trump’s recent historic trade enforcement action targeting countries that do not effectively prohibit the import of goods made by forced labor. The Post’s opposition obviously is driven by its antipathy toward the President, because for nearly one hundred years, U.S. law has prohibited the import of goods made in whole or in part with forced labor.

No other country has both adopted and effectively enforced laws of similar ambition, but President Trump is correcting that. In his first term, he succeeded in getting Mexico and Canada to adopt import bans on goods made with forced labor. He started his second term by asking countries to adopt the same forced labor import bans as a core provision in each Agreement on Reciprocal Trade. To date, 9 countries have committed to adopt and implement a forced labor import ban.

Now, the United States must ensure those commitments are effectively enforced, while continuing to use its leverage to expand the fight against slavery in global supply chains. Indeed, while American companies and workers bear the brunt of significant compliance costs to eradicate forced labor from U.S. supply chains, the rest of the world does not enjoin this practice by actually stopping forced labor products at the border. This includes countries that claim to have lofty values as part of their economic policies. Take the European Union: it finally passed a law to prohibit trade in forced labor goods — but it doesn’t even take effect until the end of 2027. Or Canada, which, despite having a law on the books, has not stopped many shipments of forced labor goods.

I understand that the Post’s Editorial Board may want to give a pass to foreign countries that choose to turn a blind eye to forced labor abroad, and it might never bring itself to publish the headline “President Trump does more to combat modern slavery than any president in a century.” But let me be clear: under President Trump, the United States will no longer tolerate forced labor in global supply chains.

Amb. Jamieson L. Greer

U.S. Trade Representative