Congress is moving to block goods made with the forced labour of Uyghurs

IF A SPORTSWEAR company like Nike or Adidas wants to know if any of the fabric in their socks or trainers is from Xinjiang, supplier of 20% of the world’s cotton, forensic science can help. Oritain, a firm based in New Zealand, says it can analyse sample swatches of cotton to determine whether particular elements—including zinc, potassium and rare-earth metals like cerium—are present in the same proportions as in cotton grown from the soil of the north-west region of China. Such tests of provenance are becoming valuable, because evidence is mounting that textiles made with cotton from Xinjiang, and other goods with links to the region, are the fruit of the forced labour of Uyghurs. The Trump administration has already moved to stop some imports from Xinjiang into the American market, and in the coming months Congress is expected to give customs officials greater power to do so. Other countries may follow America’s example.