Staff Writer
A bill to outlaw imported goods containing minerals essential to electric vehicle batteries but mined in the Democratic Republic of the Congo under exploitative circumstances has been submitted in the U.S. House.
The bill targets China, which, according to its Republican sponsor Rep. Chris Smith of New Jersey, uses child labor and forced labor to mine cobalt in the underdeveloped but resource-rich nation of central Africa.
The world’s greatest producer of cobalt, a mineral required to create lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles and a cornerstone of Vice President Joe Biden’s climate initiatives, is the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Beijing’s position in the global supply chain for electric automobiles and other products is strengthened by Beijing’s control of the majority of the DR Congo’s cobalt mines.
Following the bill’s presentation on Friday (June 30), Smith’s office charged that “the Chinese Communist Party is exploiting the vast cobalt resources of the Democratic Republic of the Congo to fuel its economy and global agenda on the backs of trafficked workers and child laborers.”
tension in the relationship between the USA and China
The measure is passed as relations between the United States and China are strained. In response to criticism from Beijing, Biden referred to Chinese President Xi Jinping as a “dictator” during a campaign fundraiser last month.
Conflicts over Taiwan’s status and security, U.S.-led limitations on China’s access to cutting-edge computer processors, and an alleged Chinese surveillance balloon that the U.S. government shot down before that.
However, the Biden administration is attempting to defuse those tensions with U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s visit to China this week, which comes after Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s two-day swing in Beijing last month.
Following an infrastructure-for-minerals agreement in 2008, China today owns a 68% share in Sicomines, a copper and cobalt joint venture with the government-run Gecamines mining company in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Congo is currently trying to renegotiate the agreement because it feels it receives too little profit from it.
Lithium, another essential component of EV batteries, was recently discovered in Congo, which is also Africa’s leading supplier of copper.
Mineral extraction has been connected to child labor, exploitation of vulnerable workers, environmental harm, and safety hazards. In a 2016 report, Amnesty International accused Chinese companies of using children in the cobalt mining industry in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and accused international tech companies of ignoring the problem of poor human rights in their supply chains.
The law would forbid the importation of “goods, wares, articles, or merchandise containing metals or minerals, in particular cobalt and lithium and their derivatives, mined, produced, smelted, or processed, wholly or in part, by child labor or forced labor in the DRC,” according to Smith’s office.
The law also calls for the president to name and punish foreign actors who support and profit from child labor in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, including by denying them visas and restricting their ability to transact.
