By Tahir Imin Uyghurian, Uyghur Times | May 3, 2025
As the U.S.-China trade war escalates again—triggered by rising tariffs, a crackdown on Chinese e-commerce giants like Shein and Temu, and political finger-pointing over fentanyl—American media outlets have saturated the airwaves and headlines with economic anxieties. But amid the noise, one disturbing fact remains glaringly absent: China’s continued use of Uyghur forced labor to dominate the global supply chain.
In an April ABC News report, tariffs imposed by the Trump administration are portrayed largely through the lens of consumer backlash—prices of cheap Chinese products like $10 T-shirts rising to $22, Shein towels jumping 377%, and fears that American households could see an extra $2,100 in annual costs. Yet, not once does the article mention the moral cost behind those “cheap” goods: the mass exploitation of Uyghurs, who are systematically detained and coerced into factory labor as part of China’s genocide in the Uyghur homeland.
Michael Sobolik, senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, wrote on X: “Not a single word in this report about why Temu and Shein are so cheap—they profit from Uyghur slave labor!”
This omission is not just a journalistic failure—it is complicity by silence.
China’s Unfair Advantage: Dictatorship and Forced Labor
Mainstream media narratives have largely focused on criticizing the Trump administration’s tariff policies, often portraying them as chaotic or damaging to American consumers and businesses. While criticism of any administration is fair game in a free society—and the aim of this opinion is not to defend the administration—these reports consistently omit the structural advantage the Chinese Communist Party enjoys: a totalitarian system that enables exploitation without consequence.
China’s competitive edge isn’t just cheap labor—it’s coerced labor. Reports by the U.S. Department of Labor, the United Nations, and independent watchdogs like the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation and Uyghur Human Rights Project have documented the transfer of over one million Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples into forced labor programs. These laborers are sent to factories that supply global brands in apparel, electronics, and more—including the very platforms, like Shein and Temu, being discussed in tariff debates.
That’s how a $1.28 towel gets made.
The Media’s Narrative: Protect Americans from Price Hikes, Not From Injustice
The New York Times and ABC News have emphasized deteriorating diplomatic ties and market uncertainty, expressing concern over whether Beijing and Washington are even communicating. Yet their coverage treats the trade war as a two-sided economic chess match, ignoring the fact that one side is playing with slave labor as pawns.
ABC News even relayed Chinese government complaints about the tariffs—quoting officials who accuse the U.S. of being “inhumane”—without irony or context. The same regime detaining over a million Uyghurs, destroying their mosques, criminalizing their religion, and sending them to work under coercion is painted as a victim in the trade war.
Why isn’t that a headline?
America Deserves the Full Truth
Trade policy is complex, but it is also moral. Americans deserve to know that the $8 shirt they click to buy online may have been sewn by an enslaved Uyghur woman held against her will in a Chinese factory. And they deserve a media that tells them this—not just what the tariffs will cost their wallets.
Instead of educating the public on China’s systemic human rights abuses—its lack of independent labor laws, absence of unionization, and ability to endure short-term pain because of Xi Jinping’s iron grip—the media often portrays the U.S. as the reckless actor escalating tensions. This warped framing fosters fear and confusion, not understanding or justice.
If American journalists want to uphold their duty to inform the public, they must start telling the whole story. That includes the fact that China uses forced labor as a weapon in global trade—a weapon aimed not just at undercutting U.S. prices, but at crushing the dignity of an entire people.
It’s time to stop treating Uyghur forced labor as a footnote—or worse, forgetting it altogether.