Joe Biden’s special climate czar, John Kerry, repeatedly has stated that the issue of slave labor in China isn’t in his “lane,” so he’s ignoring the travesty while trying to convince the Chinese to join his climate change agenda.
It appears that attitude now is spreading throughout the Democrat Party, even though the party has in large part built its current agenda around the condemnation of slavery, through the troubled Antifa, Black Lives Matter and 1619 Project movements.
The Free Beacon is reporting that Democrats, in fact, forced a plan from Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., that would ban products made with Chinese slave labor from the U.S. out of a package of amendments being voted on.
The report explained the Democrats “are blocking” the legislation to prohibit imports from China if they are made with Uyghur slave labor.
Biden administration officials are concerned it would “torpedo climate negotiations”‘ with the Chinese, the Free Beacon said it learned from congressional sources.
It is the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act by Rubio that already has been circulated in Congress and is being supported by a wide range of interests in the human rights community.
The plan was in a package of 25 amendments to the annual defense bill, but, the Free Beacon explained, “Democrats excluded the amendment from a vote late Wednesday night, after members of the party privately objected to it.”
The report explained how Biden administration officials are trying to “kill” the plan because they are afraid it could “hinder the White House’s climate agenda and limit solar panel imports from China.”
Kerry has one of the influencers trying House members to fight the crackdown on slavery, the report said.
The Beacon noted, “Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer offered conflicting explanations for the holdup on Wednesday, with his office initially suggesting to the Free Beacon that Republicans were blocking a vote on the amendment. The anti-slavery act has ‘been on the list of amendments Senate Democrats proposed the Senate to vote on that the Republicans have been objecting to … so you should ask the Senate Republicans why they’re blocking the vote,’ Schumer spokesman Justin Goodman told the Free Beacon.”
However, Schumer shortly later, disputed the claim, charging the amendment was a “poison pill” that was banished from consideration because of procedural requirements, the report said.
The act was adopted unanimously by Congress in July but had been derailed so far in the House, so Rubio proposed including it in the defense budget as an amendment.
Rubio’s aide told the Free Beacon the block on the vote means the House can avoid “having to touch this issue.”
His plan would ban imports from the Xinjiang region of China where Uyghur minority members are subjected to “forced labor, mass surveillance, and detention camps,” the report said.
Critical to Kerry’s agenda, that region is the world’s largest producer of solar panel components.
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