Forced labor—work performed involuntarily and under menace of penalty—occurs globally, with reports of abuses in all countries. About 28 million people—one in every 300 people worldwide—work against their will, bound through physical violence, threats, debt bondage, and other exploitative means. The United States has long imposed prohibitions on imports of goods made with forced labor—notably, under the Tariff Act of 1930 and the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act of 2021 (UFLPA). The UFLPA targets China's extensive use of forced labor as a state-sponsored, coercive policy tool in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR), by barring U.S. imports of goods made in the XUAR or sourced from entities connected to it. Still, such goods flow through global supply chains. In 2021, the United States accounted for over one-fifth of the world's imports of goods that were at risk of being made with forced labor.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which leads trade enforcement under these laws, requested an analysis of trade enforcement and its impact. Researchers set out to (1) assist DHS in developing analytical capabilities for assessing the impact of its efforts to combat forced labor through trade enforcement and (2) evaluate the impact that DHS's actions and investments have had on meeting the goals of eliminating U.S. imports of goods made with forced labor and eliminating the use of forced labor globally. This report outlines the researchers' methods for evaluating DHS's impact and presents findings on efforts and recommendations for strengthening enforcement.