 "A US Senate inquiry has found that BMW, Jaguar Land Rover, and Volkswagen procured car parts from a sanctioned Chinese firm. (Photo: Reuters/Siphiwe Sibeko/File Photo)")
An inquiry by the US Senate has found that automobile makers BMW, Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), and Volkswagen used parts from a Chinese supplier sanctioned by the United States for using forced labour.
The inquiry was conducted by the Senate Finance Committee over the past two years.
The inquiry found that these three companies used parts made by Chinese supplier JWD, which has been flagged for using forced labour in China’s Xinjiang province. China is accused of putting several hundreds of thousands of Xinjiang’s native Uyghur Muslims in internment camps and forcibly using them in manufacturing industries. China is accused of systemic persecution of Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang.
What has inquiry found about BMW, JLR & Volkswagen?
The Senate inquiry found that BMW imported to the US 8,000 cars that had parts made by the JWD.
The inquiry also found that JLR also used JWD-made parts in its vehicles.
Volkswagen, however, disclosed on its own to the US authorities that parts of the JWD made its way into its cars for the US through two contractors. The two contractors have been identified as California-based Bourns Inc. and Michigan-based Lear Corp, as per the Associated Press.
The agency further noted that the Lear Corp is also a supplier of JLR and BMW.
‘Automakers’ self-policing is clearly not doing job’
Senator Ron Wyden, who chairs the Senate Finance Committee, said that the automakers’ self-policing is not doing its job.
Impact Shorts
More ShortsWyden further called upon US border authorities to step-up enforcement that goods with sanctioned components don’t make it to the US.
“Automakers are sticking their heads in the sand and then swearing they cannot find any forced labor in their supply chains. Somehow, the Finance Committee’s oversight staff uncovered what multibillion-dollar companies apparently could not….Automakers’ self-policing is clearly not doing the job,” said Wyden.
In 2021, the US enacted the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA). The law banned the entry into US of products made with forced labor in Xinjiang. In December 2023, the US added JWD, the supplier at the centre of the report’s findings, to the list of suppliers using forced labour in Xinjiang, according to The New York Times.