cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/59758075
The apparel had come from a garment manufacturer closely related to Chinese textile giant Esquel Group, shipment records show. Esquel has effectively been banned from selling to U.S. customers since November 2024, when Washington sanctioned the company over alleged links with forced labour programs in China’s Xinjiang region. Hong Kong-based Esquel denies the allegations.
Since Esquel’s blacklisting, three garment makers in Vietnam have continued to source much of its cotton while also selling products to the U.S., the records show. The three manufacturers all had ties with Esquel that ran beyond a shared supply chain: All three used geographical variations on the name Esquel Garment Manufacturing Vietnam until they were rebranded in October 2022.
Edgar Tung, who served as Esquel’s chief executive between 2021 and 2022, was also listed in corporate filings as an owner’s representative at the three makers. The records show that the garment makers were owned by the same three offshore firms before and after they were renamed.
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[Investigators] could not establish whether the products sent by the Vietnamese makers to the U.S. contained cotton that was produced by Esquel Group or in Xinjiang, the far western region of China that is home to some 20 per cent of global cotton production. The three manufacturers also source from entities other than Esquel, which shipment data show was for years their biggest supplier.
It is, however, industry practice to blend cotton from different sources together, two supply-chain experts and two U.S. trade lawyers said.
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The three garment makers [An Loi Apparel, Tessellation Binh Duong and Tessellation Hoa Binh] together have exported at least US$5 million in cotton goods to the U.S. since Esquel was sanctioned. Details of the firms’ U.S. sales haven’t been previously reported.
A spokesperson for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which is responsible for enforcing the forced labour sanctions, did not comment on Reuters findings but said that the agency encourages companies to either remove suppliers that use forced labour or require them to change their practices.
The clothing that the Vietnamese manufacturers shipped to the U.S. was made for brands including Japanese retail giant Muji 7453.T and New Zealand menswear label Rodd & Gunn. The companies confirmed they sourced from those makers.
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Esquel Group describes itself as a “seed to shirt” enterprise. Its operations in recent years have spanned agriculture research labs, cotton mills and apparel factories.
The company has a long history of operating in Xinjiang, where cotton has been grown for hundreds of years. The region is also home to millions of Uyghurs, a mostly Muslim ethnic minority that United Nations experts and the U.S. say have been persecuted by China’s Han-Chinese-dominated government.
The alleged abuses include the detention of Uyghurs in internment camps where the U.S. government says they are forced to produce textiles for minimal pay. China says the allegations are baseless.
Textiles from the region flowed freely to the West until around 2020, when U.S. regulators sanctioned one of Esquel’s Xinjiang mills over its alleged use of Uyghur forced labour. Esquel said that major customers, including Tommy Hilfiger owner PVH, subsequently moved to pause or cancel orders.
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That level of enforcement has drawn scrutiny from Democratic lawmakers. In a letter to CBP leaders in December 2025, the U.S. lawmakers said that inspections have “dropped drastically in recent months despite no evidence that shipments of goods prohibited by the law have slowed.”
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