U.S. businesses propose hiding trade data used to trace abuse

A group of major U.S. businesses wants the government to hide key import data – a move trade experts say would make it more difficult for Americans to link the products they buy to labor abuse overseas.

The Commercial Customs Operations Advisory Committee is made up of executives from 20 companies, including Walmart, General Motors and Intel. The committee is authorized by U.S. Customs and Border Protection to advise on ways to streamline trade regulations.

Last week – ahead of closeddoor meetings starting Monday in Washington with senior officials from CBP and other federal agencies – the executives quietly unveiled proposals they said would modernize import and export rules to keep pace with trade volumes that have nearly quintupled in the past three decades. The Associated Press obtained a copy of the proposal from a committee member.

Among the proposed changes: making data collected from vessel manifests confidential.

The information is vitally important for researchers and reporters seeking to hold corporations accountable for the mistreatment of workers in their foreign supply chains.

Here's how it works: Journalists document a situation where laborers are being forced to work and cannot leave. They then use the shipping manifests to show where the products end up, and sometimes even their brand names and whether they're on a shelf at a local supermarket or a rack of clothes at a local mall.

The proposal, if adopted, would shroud in secrecy customs data on ocean-going freight responsible for about half of the $2.7 trillion in goods entering the U.S. every year. Rail, truck and air cargo is already shielded from public disclosure under U.S. trade law.

"This is outrageous," said Martina Vandenberg, a human rights lawyer who has filed petitions with CBP seeking to block shipments of goods suspected of being made by forced labor.

"Every year we continue to import and sell millions of dollars in goods tainted by forced labor," said Vandenberg, president of the Washington-based Human Trafficking Legal Center. "Corporate America should be ashamed that their answer to this abuse is to end transparency. It's time they get on the right side of history."

CBP said it would not comment on ideas that have not been formally submitted by its advisory committee but said that the group's proposals are developed with input gathered in public meetings.

But one of CBP's stated goals in creating what it has dubbed a "21st Century Customs Framework" is to boost visibility into global supply chains, support ethical sourcing practices and level the playing field for domestic U.S. manufacturers.

Reports by the AP and other media have documented how large quantities of clothing, electronics and seafood make their way onto U.S. shelves every year as a result of illegal forced labor that engages 28 million people globally, according to the International Labor Organization. Much of that investigative work — whether into clothing made by Uyghurs at internment camps in China's Xinjiang region, cocoa harvested by children in the Ivory Coast or seafood caught by Philippine fishermen toiling in slave-like conditions – starts with shipping manifests.

"Curtailing access to this information will make it harder for the public to monitor a shipping industry that already functions largely in the shadows," said Peter Klein, a professor at University of British Columbia, where he runs the Hidden Costs of Global Supply Chains project, an international collaborative between researchers and journalists.

"If anything, CBP should be prioritizing more transparency, opening up records of shipments by air, road and rail as well."

In its 34-page presentation, the business advisory panel said its goal in further restricting access to customs data is to protect confidential business information from "data breaches" that it says "have become more commonplace, severe and consequential."

The group also wants CBP for the first time to provide importers with advance notice whenever it suspects forced labor is being used. Activists say such a move puts whistleblowers overseas at risk of retaliation.

GM declined to comment, referring all inquiries to the Customs Operations Advisory Committee. Neither Intel nor Walmart responded to AP requests for comment.