US will ‘do what it takes to protect vulnerable workers’ but frames slavery as a matter of trade competition not human rights

By Reuters via TheGuardian. com, Sept. 20

The United States said on Thursday it was boosting its fight against slave-made goods “to safeguard American jobs“, signaling that the Trump administration regards forced labor as a trade, rather than a human rights issue.

The new approach was revealed in the Department of Labor’s biennial list of goods that it “has reason to believe” are produced by child or forced labor, which became a crime to import in 2016 under a law introduced by Barack Obama.

“American workers cannot compete with producers abroad who use child labor or forced labor,” the US secretary of labor, Alexander Acostam said in a foreword to the list of 148 goods produced in 76 countries.  If “a trading partner” engages in child or forced labor, “the US will do what it takes to protect vulnerable workers from exploitation, safeguard American jobs and create a fair playing field for countries that play by the rules”, he added. A Department of Labor spokeswoman said the report represented a key contribution to protecting vulnerable workers from exploitation worldwide [....]