
Shein, Temu may be added to 'forced labour' list as Trump administration considers move
The Trump administration has not made a final decision on the matter and could ultimately decide not to list either, the report said, citing two sources familiar with the discussions.
Both companies denied the use of forced labour.
"We are not aware of any such consideration," Shein said in an emailed statement to Reuters. The company is in full compliance with the US UFLPA (Uyghur Forced Labour Prevention Act), it added.
"Temu strictly prohibits the use of forced labour and enforces our Third-Party Code of Conduct, which bars all forms of involuntary labour," Temu said in an email.
The move comes after China imposed targeted tariffs on U.S. imports and put several companies, including Alphabet Inc's Google, on notice for possible sanctions, in a measured response to U.S. President Donald Trump's levies, which came into effect on Tuesday.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


Gulf Today
14 minutes ago
- Gulf Today
Let voters, not politicians, decide elections in democracy
Jeffrey A. Mandell, Tribune News Service The effort in Texas to hastily redraw congressional maps for partisan advantage reveals vulnerabilities in our democratic system, subject to exploitation by bad actors. As this crisis escalates into multiple states, it threatens the notion that voters should determine who wins elections. Driving the effort to rig these maps is President Donald Trump's anxiety over potentially losing control of the US House of Representatives in next year's midterm elections. To avoid that outcome, Trump asked Texas Republicans to redraw voter boundaries in order to add five more Republican seats. US Attorney General Pam Bondi's Justice Department wrote to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, falsely asserting that the current maps violate federal law. The letter demanded that Texas further exacerbate its existing partisan gerrymander by adopting an even-more-audaciously partisan mid-decade redistricting plan. Abbott obeyed, calling the Texas legislature into special session to adopt new maps. In response, most members of the Democratic caucus in the Texas House fled the state to deprive the legislature of a quorum and forestall Trump's plan. Abbott declared this action unlawful, asserting the lawmakers can be removed and replaced, and ordering their arrest. (It appears Abbott will now call a second special session, and the Democratic House members will return.) This has triggered another troubling development: Democrats have publicly proposed that 'blue' states respond in kind. They say California, New York, Illinois and possibly other Democrat-led states should immediately redistrict to create more Democratic-leaning congressional districts. And there is talk that Republicans in Ohio, Florida, Indiana and Missouri may re-tinker with their maps as well. As an advocate for redistricting reform in Wisconsin, I believe nothing good can come from Trump's redistricting arms race. This is happening solely due to his unwillingness to abide by democratic norms, which is nothing to emulate (as some are beginning to recognise). Rather, this should be an opportunity to think anew about the process and standards used to draw the representative districts that underlie our democracy. The constitutional guarantee of 'one person, one vote' means each of us should have an equal say in who represents us in government and makes the laws by which we all live. We uphold this principle by redistricting at the beginning of each decade, using new census data to divide our population into electoral districts, for everything from city councils to state legislatures to the US House of Representatives. Drawing district lines has always been entwined with efforts to game the system for advantage. These efforts, called gerrymandering, can take many forms. But all wrest power away from voters by fixing electoral outcomes, transforming campaigns that should be contests of ideas into preordained charades. Voters have little say because the district lines are drawn, using incredibly precise partisan data, in ways that preclude actual competition. Yet the harm from allowing Texas to ram through Trump's plan will be compounded if blue states retaliate with new maps to balance the net partisan impact. This, too, would threaten the foundational concept — the credo of our nation — that we, the people, choose our leaders. There is a better way. Districts can and should be drawn both to avoid significantly advantaging one political party over another and to increase electoral competition. Whenever it is otherwise, elected officials have less incentive to be responsive to voters. Law Forward, the pro-democracy law firm I head, is currently urging the Wisconsin courts to evaluate the state's congressional map, which was purposely drawn to give Republicans an advantage. We believe the state's courts should recognise competition as a relevant criterion in evaluating maps. And courts across the country should follow suit. Court intervention is not the ultimate solution. Every state should adopt independent, nonpartisan redistricting models. The Wisconsin Fair Maps Coalition is holding hearings around the state, engaging voters in discussion about how maps should be drawn and what factors should be considered. Several other states have adopted nonpartisan redistricting models that are working. We should demand this approach be expanded, not restricted or scrapped. What's happening in Texas is a travesty for democracy. The consequences affect every American. We, as voters, must demand better.


The National
35 minutes ago
- The National
Oil prices rise after Trump-Zelenskyy meeting as Ukraine ceasefire remains elusive
Oil prices rose on Monday after US President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy expressed hope that talks with European leaders at the White House could pave the way for a trilateral summit with Russian leader Vladimir Putin to end Moscow's years-long invasion of Ukraine. The talks held at the White House were expected to focus on security guarantees for Ukraine, a possible annexation of Ukrainian territory to Russia and a peace agreement. 'We are ready for a trilateral [meeting with Russia],' Mr Zelenskyy said during a meeting with Mr Trump. At the meeting with Mr Trump and European leaders, he said he would be willing to have the US President present during a meeting with Mr Putin. The hastily arranged meeting came days after Mr Trump and Mr Putin held talks in Anchorage, Alaska. Brent, the global benchmark for crude, rose 0.97 per cent to $65.54 a barrel as of 4pm ET. West Texas Intermediate, which tracks US crude, was 1 per cent higher at $62.60. Oil prices surged to $140 a barrel in March 2022 after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and sanctions imposed on Moscow by Washington and London. Prices fell in the months since with factors including an inflationary surge, a decrease in Chinese demand and fears of a global economic slowdown. Mr Trump has lately sought to punish Russia by doubling the tariff rate placed on India to 50 per cent as New Delhi continues to buy oil and military machinery from Moscow. The latest tariff is due to go into effect in a couple weeks. 'India's dependence on Russian crude is opportunistic and deeply corrosive of the world's efforts to isolate Putin's war economy,' White House trade adviser Peter Navarro wrote in an opinion piece for the Financial Times on Sunday. 'In effect, India acts as a global clearinghouse for Russian oil, converting embargoed crude into high-value exports while giving Moscow the dollars it needs.' Eyes turn to Jackson Hole Major indexes on Wall Street, meanwhile, were largely muted as traders awaited incoming economic data and Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell's address at Jackson Hole this week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 33.93 points, or 0.08 per cent, when trading closed on Monday. The S&P 500 ticked 0.01 per cent lower while the Nasdaq Composite rose slightly at 0.03 per cent. Mr Powell was due to speak at the annual symposium in Wyoming as traders increasingly expect the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates when it meets next month. The odds of a September rate cut have climbed considerably since a weaker-than-expected jobs report last month. The Fed has held interest rates steady this year after cutting rates three times to its current range of 4.25-4.50 per cent in the final three months of 2024. 'The risk of an earlier cut increased following the release of the July employment report. However, of the Fed's two policy objectives, inflation is still furthest from its target and that gap is likely to widen as the full impact of tariffs becomes apparent in the data,' Oxford Economics lead analyst John Canavan wrote to clients. The Fed is also due to release minutes from its July meeting on Wednesday, where traders will scrutinise a debate among Fed officials in which two governors dissented against last month's decision to hold rates steady. Big-box retailers including Home Depot, Lowes, Walmart and Target were also scheduled to release their earnings reports this week. Jobless claims and fresh housing data are due to be released before Mr Powell's keynote address on Friday.


The National
44 minutes ago
- The National
Conservative network Newsmax agrees to pay $67m in defamation case over 2020 election claims
The conservative network Newsmax will pay $67 million to settle a lawsuit accusing it of defaming a voting equipment company by spreading lies about President Donald Trump 's 2020 election loss, according to documents filed on Monday. The settlement comes after Fox News paid $787.5 million to settle a similar lawsuit in 2023 and Newsmax paid what court papers say was $40 million to settle a libel lawsuit from a different voting machine manufacturer, Smartmatic, which also was a target of pro-Trump conspiracy theories on the network. Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric Davis had ruled earlier that Newsmax did defame the Denver company Dominion Voting Systems by airing false information about the company and its equipment. But Mr Davis left it to a jury to eventually decide whether that was done with malice, and if so how much Dominion deserved from Newsmax in damages. Newsmax and Dominion reached the settlement before the trial could take place. The disclosure came as Mr Trump, who lost his 2020 re-election bid to the Democrat Joe Biden, vowed in a social media post on Monday to eliminate mail-in ballots and voting machines such as those supplied by Dominion and other companies. It not known how the Republican President could achieve that. The same judge also handled the Dominion-Fox News case and made a similar ruling that the network repeated numerous lies from Mr Trump's allies about his 2020 loss despite internal communications showing Fox officials knew the claims were bogus. 'How long are we going to play along with election fraud?' the Newsmax host Bob Sellers said two days after the 2020 election was called for Mr Biden, according to internal documents revealed as part of the case. Newsmax took pride that it was not calling the election for Mr Biden and, the internal documents show, saw a business opportunity in catering to viewers who believed Mr Trump won. At Newsmax, employees repeatedly warned against false allegations from pro-Trump guests such as lawyer Sidney Powell, according to documents in the lawsuit. In one text, even Newsmax's owner Chris Ruddy, a Trump ally, said he found it 'scary' that Mr Trump was meeting with Ms Powell. Dominion was at the heart of many of the wild claims aired by guests on Newsmax and elsewhere. The network retracted some of its more bombastic allegations in December 2020. Though Mr Trump has insisted his fraud claims are real, there is no evidence that they were, and the lawsuits in the Fox and Newsmax cases show that some of the President's biggest supporters knew they were false at the time. Mr Trump's attorney general at the time, William Barr, said there was no evidence of widespread fraud. Mr Trump and his backers lost dozens of lawsuits alleging fraud, some before Trump-appointed judges. Numerous recounts, reviews and audits of the election results, including some run by Republicans, turned up no signs of significant wrongdoing or error and affirmed Mr Biden's win.