US Solar Shipments Suffer Due To Recent Import Ban on China's Xinjiang Region: Report

As U.S. authorities crack down on human rights abuses in China's Xinjiang region, which produces about half of the world's supply of a vital component in solar panels, the U.S. solar industry is facing new challenges, writes Wall Street Journal.

What happened: According to Industry executives and analysts, numerous Chinese solar-panel suppliers have had shipments to the U.S. delayed or sent back over the past few weeks as customs authorities enforced a new law. The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, or UFLPA, went into effect at the end of June.

Companies need to prove that imports weren't produced by forced labor. The amount of documentation required by authorities so far has caught many in the industry off guard, according to analysts.

Why It matters: The recent UFLPA delays serve as a reminder that there are still many supply-chain issues, especially as the Biden administration strives to strike a balance between its ambitious renewable energy target and its desire to be tough on China, which dominates the solar manufacturing industry.

The UFLPA is the most recent U.S. attempt to censure abuses in China's northwestern region of Xinjiang, where human-rights groups say the government has forced hundreds of thousands of people from ethnic-minority groups into internment camps as part of an assimilation campaign.

The Chinese government has repeatedly denied claims of forced labor and abuses in Xinjiang and claimed that the UFLPA is not supported by facts.

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