UFLPA

The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) was inked on Dec 23, 2021, came into public law, and was enforced on June 21, 2022. By creating a rebuttable presumption that all goods, papers, wares, and merchandise produced, mined, trapped, produced, or manufactured in whole or in part in the Xinjiang region of the People's Republic of China, or by certain entities linked by the U.S. government on a UFLPA entity list, are prohibited from entry into the U.S., it aids U.S. Customs and Border Protection's (CBP) forced labor enforcement authorities.

Region Alert

The Commissioner of U.S. CBP initiated the UFLPA region Alert enhancement to the Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) on March 18, 2023. This provides prior notification to importers and those who represent their products that goods may have been manufactured in XUAR (Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region) and importation into the U.S. is banned. This deployment includes Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) impacts.

Any changes for trade users?

UFLPA Region will include 3 new verifications to Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) applications. ACE is the U.S. electronic Single Window platform for all trade processing, Cargo Release, Post-release, Export and Partner Government Agency (PGA) data.

Validations to the ACE application:

• The postal code field is required.
• Invalid Chinese postal code will show an alert to the user.
• Warning messages will be displayed for any postal code from XUAR region.

Applications that could be affected:

• Cargo Release application - exclusive to the manufacturer and only when the country is the Republic of China.
• Application for a Factory Identification Code - When generating or changing a code with a city in the Republic of China.

This deployment gives the ability to update an active/existing MID with required postal code.

What should trade users do?

If a user receives a warning message, they should let the ‘importers of rebuttable presumption by UFLPA’ know about this.

Importers can request exclusion to the rebuttable presumption from CBP during custody, after the exclusion, or during the invasion step as explained in UFLPA operational guidance for importers