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[Congressional Bills 116th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 1376 Introduced in House (IH)]

<DOC>

116th CONGRESS
  1st Session
                                H. R. 1376

To require a report on the continuing participation of Cambodia in the 
                   Generalized System of Preferences.

_______________________________________________________________________

                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                           February 26, 2019

  Mr. Lowenthal (for himself and Mr. Chabot) introduced the following 
      bill; which was referred to the Committee on Ways and Means

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL

 
To require a report on the continuing participation of Cambodia in the 
                   Generalized System of Preferences.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Cambodia Trade Act of 2019''.

SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

    Congress finds the following:
            (1) Prime Minister Hun Sen has been in power in Cambodia 
        since 1985 and is the longest-serving leader in Southeast Asia.
            (2) The Paris Peace Accords in 1991 provided a vital 
        framework, supported by the United States, European Union, and 
        Japan, intended to help Cambodia undertake a transition to 
        democracy, including through elections and multiparty 
        democracy.
            (3) For more than 25 years, the United States Government 
        has provided hundreds of millions of dollars in development aid 
        and other types of assistance to the people of Cambodia, 
        including preferential trade treatment.
            (4) In 1997, the United States included Cambodia in the 
        Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) program, which extends 
        specialized duty-free exports to developing nations.
            (5) The Trade Act of 1974 establishes conditions of 
        eligibility for inclusion in GSP, including ``whether or not 
        other major developed countries are extending generalized 
        preferential tariff treatment to such country'', and ``whether 
        or not such country has taken or is taking steps to afford to 
        workers in that country (including any designated zone in that 
        country) internationally recognized worker rights''.
            (6) The two sectors in Cambodia's economy that benefits 
        from GSP are garment and handbag production. The garment 
        industry is the largest employer in Cambodia's economy and 
        accounts for nearly half of gross domestic product growth. The 
        sector employs more than 700,000 Cambodians, most of whom are 
        women. In 2018, Human Rights Watch warned that these women are 
        often subjected to forced overtime and pregnancy-based 
        discrimination, and denied paid maternity leave.
            (7) In 2015, Human Rights Watch released a broader study on 
        the garment sector in Cambodia with the following finding: 
        ``[Labor rights abuses] include forced overtime and retaliation 
        against those who sought exemption from overtime, lack of rest 
        breaks, denial of sick leave, use of underage child labor, and 
        the use of union-busting strategies to thwart independent 
        unions.''.
            (8) In October 2017, the Office of the United States Trade 
        Representative (USTR) announced a new triennial process to 
        assess GSP beneficiary country eligibility. The first 
        assessment period covered 25 Asian and Pacific Island GSP 
        beneficiary countries. For each such country, USTR and other 
        United States Government agencies examined the country's 
        policies and practices related to each of the 15 eligibility 
        criteria established by Congress, including respecting arbitral 
        awards in favor of United States citizens or corporations, 
        combating child labor, respecting internationally recognized 
        worker rights, providing adequate and effective intellectual 
        property protection, reducing barriers to services trade and 
        investment, and providing the United States with equitable and 
        reasonable market access. In April 2018, USTR announced that it 
        is reviewing the eligibility of India, Indonesia, and 
        Kazakhstan in the GSP program based on concerns about the 
        countries' compliance with the program. This review did not 
        mention Cambodia.
            (9) In the 2017 Human Rights Report, the Department of 
        State warned: ``Labor inspectors did not enforce labor 
        standards in the informal sector or in unlicensed workplaces. 
        In the formal sector, sources reported labor inspectors 
        conducted routine inspections only in registered garment and 
        footwear factories, where the incidence of child labor remained 
        extremely low.''.
            (10) In its country-specific Cambodia report in 2017, the 
        Department of Labor stated: ``When child labor inspections do 
        occur, they are concentrated in the city of Phnom Penh, as well 
        as in the provincial, formal-sector factories producing goods 
        for export, such as textiles and garments.''.
            (11) In 2018, the Department of Labor released a report on 
        goods produced by child labor pursuant to the Trafficking 
        Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2005, and identified 
        Cambodia as one of four countries, including the People's 
        Republic of China, which produces textiles with child labor.
            (12) The European Union established ``Everything But Arms'' 
        (EBA) in 2001, a comparable GSP program, which included 
        Cambodia. The European Union began the formal process of 
        reviewing Cambodia's inclusion in EBA in 2018 in response to 
        Prime Minister Hun Sen's authoritarian manipulation of the 2018 
        general elections, which included imprisoning Cambodia National 
        Rescue Party (CNRP) President Kem Sokha, dissolving CNRP, and 
        closing independent newspapers and radio stations.
            (13) On February 11, 2019, the European Commission launched 
        a procedure that could lead to suspension of Cambodia from EBA 
        trade preferences. In the announcement the Commission stated: 
        ``Following a period of enhanced engagement, including a fact-
        finding mission to Cambodia in July 2018 and subsequent 
        bilateral meetings at the highest level, the Commission has 
        concluded that there is evidence of serious and systematic 
        violations of core human rights and labour rights in Cambodia, 
        in particular of the rights to political participation as well 
        as of the freedoms of assembly, expression and association. 
        These findings add to the longstanding EU concerns about the 
        lack of workers' rights and disputes linked to economic land 
        concessions in the country.''.

SEC. 3. REPORT ON THE CONTINUING PARTICIPATION OF CAMBODIA IN THE 
              GENERALIZED SYSTEM OF PREFERENCES.

    (a) Report.--Not later than 90 days after the date of the enactment 
of this Act, the President shall submit to the appropriate committees 
of Congress a report setting forth the following:
            (1) A determination as to whether, if its status as such 
        were reviewed, the Government of Cambodia would meet the 
        criteria in sections 501 and 502(c) of the Trade Act of 1974 
        (19 U.S.C. 2461, 2462(c)) for designation as--
                    (A) a beneficiary developing country; or
                    (B) a least-developed beneficiary developing 
                country.
            (2) A decision as to whether the application of duty-free 
        treatment under the Generalized System of Preferences to the 
        Government of Cambodia should be withdrawn, suspended, or 
        limited pursuant to section 502(d) of the Trade Act of 1974 (19 
        U.S.C. 2462(d)).
    (b) Form.--The report required by subsection (a) shall be submitted 
in unclassified form, but may include a classified annex.
    (c) Appropriate Committees of Congress Defined.--In this section, 
the term ``appropriate committees of Congress'' means--
            (1) the Committee on Finance of the Senate; and
            (2) the Committee on Ways and Means of the House of 
        Representatives.
                                 <all>
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