WASHINGTON — Today, the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) convened representatives of over 50 trading partners from around the world to provide training related to imposing and effectively enforcing forced labor import prohibitions. As part of a whole-of-government effort to support governments that are willing to combat the trade in goods made with forced labor through import prohibitions at their own borders, USTR is partnering with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and U.S. Department of Labor to provide the training, as well as in-depth and country-specific technical assistance.
The United States has prohibited the import of goods made with forced labor for almost 100 years. In recent years, successive U.S. Congresses and presidential administrations have strengthened this prohibition in domestic law, as well as incorporated it in international trade agreements. As a result of these efforts and USTR’s Section 301 investigation of this issue, by July 2026, 12 additional economies had adopted measures that prohibit the importation of goods made by forced labor, including Cambodia, Canada, Ecuador, the European Union, Guatemala, Honduras, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Trinidad and Tobago. Since then, dozens more countries have expressed interest in adopting similar measures. The Trump Administration remains committed to addressing this unfair trade practice by working with these and other trading partners to set a new, global standard for combating the trade in forced labor goods to protect workers at home and abroad.
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