SENSE OF CONGRESS REQUESTING THE PRESIDENT TO INSTRUCT THE SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY TO ENFORCE SECTION 307 OF THE TARIFF ACT OF 1930 WITHOUT DELAY.

SEC. 1906. SENSE OF CONGRESS REQUESTING THE PRESIDENT TO INSTRUCT THE SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY TO ENFORCE SECTION 307 OF THE TARIFF ACT OF 1930 WITHOUT DELAY. (a) Congressional Findings.— The Congress finds that— (1) its February 1983 report to the Congress on forced labor in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the Department of State confirmed that Soviet forced labor is used “to produce large amounts of primary and manufactured goods for both domestic and Western export markets”, and that such labor is used as an integral part of Soviet national economy; (2) the Central Intelligence Agency has compiled a list of over three dozen products made by Soviet forced labor and imported by the United States, and that items on the September 27, 1983 list include chemicals, gold, uranium, aluminum, wood products and glassware; (3) the International Commission on Human Rights has concluded that the Soviet Union “continues the deplorable practice of forced labor in manufacturing and construction projects” and that prisoners “are forced to work under conditions of extreme 102 STAT. 1314hardship including malnutrition, inadequate shelter and clothing, and severe discipline”; (4) the Congress is on record as opposing forced labor, having enacted a prohibition (in section 307 of the Tariff Act of 1930 (19 U.S.C. 1307)) on the importation of goods made with such labor and having passed in the Ninety-eighth Congress by unanimous vote a resolution calling such practices morally reprehensible and calling upon the President to express to the Soviet Union the opposition of the United States to such policies; (5) the prohibition enacted by the Congress declares that “goods, wares, articles, and merchandise mined, produced or manufactured wholly or in part in any foreign country by convict labor or/and forced labor or/and indentured labor under penal sanctions shall not be entitled to entry at any of the ports of the United States, and the importation thereof is hereby prohibited”; (6) there is ample knowledge of the Soviet forced labor system to require enforcement of the prohibition contained in section 307 of the Tariff Act of 1930 (19 U.S.C. 1307); and (7) the delay in enforcing the law brings into question the commitment of the United States to protest the inhumane treatment of prisoners in the Soviet Gulag, an estimated ten thousand of whom are political and religious prisoners according to the Department of State. (b) Sense of Congress.— It is the sense of the Congress that the President should express to the Soviet Union in the firmest possible terms the strong moral opposition of the United States to the slave labor policies of the Soviet Union by every means possible, including refusing to permit the importation into the United States of any products made in whole or in part by such labor. (c) Presidential Action.— The President is hereby requested to instruct the Secretary of the Treasury to enforce section 307 of the Tariff Act of 1930 (19 U.S.C. 1307) without delay.