CBP's UFLPA Shadow List
How Well Do You Know the UFLPA?
Just a short update this week, as I’ve been hard at work on something else that I’m excited to share shortly. Stay tuned for more on that, hopefully early next week.
This week, I want to tell you an eyebrow raising story, and I have an ask for you. But first, let me set the stage by offering you a brief self-test on how well you know the UFLPA.
How well do you know the UFLPA?
If you’ve only heard about the UFLPA, but spent no time with it, you probably think of it as a one trick pony. Do you think of it as a law with a single focus—the law targeting imports from the Xinjiang region of China? Well you’re correct! When viewed from a certain altitude, that is an accurate description of the law.
But if you’ve spent any amount of time trying to get to know the UFLPA, at least by reading its online dating profiles (er . . . the UFLPA Strategy and CBP Importer Guidance), you probably understand that this law talks a lot about how it had a double major in college. If you’ve read these documents closely (or even just this newsletter on a regular basis), you probably know the law’s common refrain by heart: it targets goods manufactured wholly or in part in Xinjiang or by a UFLPA Listed Entity.
But only once you’ve taken the UFLPA out on the town a few times will you come to realize that the UFLPA can act, sing and dance. That’s right, it’s actually a triple threat.
By this I mean, yes, the law is focused on goods produced wholly or in part in Xinjiang. And yes, the UFLPA Entity List is a prime focus of enforcement. But the law is also being enforced against an entire different list of entities. Until a more formal term emerges (either from CBP directly, or as a result of some new governing law or regulation), I’ll henceforth refer to this CBP’s UFLPA Shadow List, or Shadow List, for short.
CBP’s UFLPA Shadow List
The Shadow List is a list of truly unfortunate Chinese companies. And I do mean that. They are truly unfortunate. Regardless of whether you feel the UFLPA is a scion of human rights defense, or something short of that vision, spare a thought for the enterprise on CBP’s UFLPA Shadow List.
Companies on the Shadow List are either final manufacturers of goods or Chinese exporters. CBP knows about these companies because they are actually identified on an importer’s entry records as either a “manufacturer” or “foreign exporter” of goods. So CBP knows their names and addresses, and is using that information to compile a list. A list of entities whose exports are actually being targeted for detention.
What sins of commission or omission will cause a company to land on the Shadow List? Well, that is hard to say. These entities are (for the most part) not located in Xinjiang. They are also not entities for which there has been any documented sourcing linkage to Xinjiang. You do not get placed on the CBP UFLPA Shadow List for participation in a social program of concern (e.g., for taking a transfers of Uyghur workers.)
A Story, and an Ask, about the Shadow List
We’ve spent a fair amount of time studying what little information we can get our hands on about the entities on the CBP UFLPA Shadow List, and even the very small amount of data I’ve reviewed has contained some surprises.
Why, yes, I can share a story to whet your appetite. But first, please allow me to make a request.
If you’re reading this and your company has experienced a UFLPA detention, I would be very grateful to hear from you. If you can share with me some very limited information off of the entry documentation of the detained shipment (on a strictly confidential basis), my team and I would like to do some additional research, to see what may be reverse-engineered about CBP’s UFLPA Shadow List. If you’re able to consider this, please shoot me an email, or reach out via LinkedIn.
One detention we helped respond to, the manufacturer was a garment factory located in Shanghai. We examined it closely, and found nothing out of the ordinary. We conducted 6 hours of Mandarin language research on this entity, and a comprehensive review of English language sources, and found nothing that could support any grounds for suspicion. It was clearly a legitimate business, with no evidence the company had any sourcing relationship with Xinjiang, participated in a social program of concern, or been subject to any sort of allegation regarding the same.
But we did find one interesting thing. We found a different company, operating in a different business sector in the same city, with highly similar name. This too appeared to be a fully legitimate business. The second company, a hard consumer goods manufacturer, operated out of its location in Shanghai on . . . “Xinjian Road”.
Now. I’m not saying that CBP stopped a shipment because it mistook the manufacturer declared on an entry of goods for a different manufacturer with almost the same name, doing business on a road in Shanghai that is almost an English cognate for Xinjiang.
But I’m also not not saying that.
Thank you for reading. If you are able share some limited confidential information about a UFLPA detention you have encountered, please send me an email or connect via LinkedIn.