BREAKING NEWS: Congress Signs Bill Prohibiting The Import Of Raw Materials Originating From Africa

On the 26th of February, the US Federal Reserve signed a bill prohibiting the import of key raw materials from African and selected other countries. This bill comes at a time when the US is trying to force end-users such as OEMs, telecommunication manufacturers and technology firms to take responsibility for the entire supply chains, ensuring that at each stage, the product has been produced or mined with integrity and is conflict-free. Specifically, integrity points to the fact that no forced labour or child labour was used, the material was mined in an environmentally responsible way and the materials were exported, devoid of any bribery or corruption.

The bill is an amendment to legislation that has been in force for years which prohibits US companies from importing goods that utilise child labour. This particular piece of legislation had a provision that as long as the produce did not land up on US shores, then US companies could in fact benefit from these practices. The amendment that was signed not only removed this provision, but forbids the imports of selected commodities from specific jurisdictions.

The list of goods per country that are forbidden to be imported in the US include:

Core Consultants has recognised the importance of a conflict-free supply chain as well as the responsibility placed on end-users. As such we have been assisting key end users in understanding their supply chains, identifying potential risk areas and working towards a common solution so as to ensure that end users do not get caught without material.

Lara Smith

Lara is the CEO and founder of Core Consultants. She has been an analyst for over thirteen years and has focused on commodity markets for just over a decade. She began her career as a buy-side analyst at Foord Asset Management in Cape Town, before taking a Head of Research role at a mining corporate finance and investment firm.

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