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 author Rep. Chris Smith of New Jersey, uses child labour and forced labour 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.
“On the backs of trafficked workers and child laborers, the Chinese Communist Party is exploiting the vast cobalt resources of the Democratic Republic of Congo to fuel its economy and global agenda,” Smith’s office accused in a statement following the bill’s introduction Friday (Jun. 30).
- Strained USA-China ties
The law is being passed in the midst of tense relations between the US and China. During a campaign fundraiser last month, Biden referred to Chinese President Xi Jinping as a “dictator,” which sparked a backlash in Beijing.
That came after tensions over Taiwan’s status and security, U.S.-led kerbs on China’s access to cutting-edge computer processors, and an alleged Chinese surveillance balloon that the U.S. government shot down.
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 currently owns a 68% interest in Sicomines, the copper and cobalt joint venture with the Congo’s state mining company Gecamines. Congo is now looking to review the agreement because it feels it receives too little profit from it.
A recent discovery of lithium, another essential component of EV batteries, was made in Congo, which is also Africa’s leading supplier of copper.
Mineral extraction has been connected to unsafe working conditions, environmental exploitation, and child labour. Amnesty International accused international tech companies of neglecting to address the negative human rights issue in their supply chains and Chinese companies of using children in the cobalt mining industry in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in a 2016 study.
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 labour or forced labour 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 labour in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, including by denying them visas and restricting their ability to transact.
