The Manifest Modernization Act: Enhancing Visibility Into Forced Labor Risks in U.S. Supply Chains

Commentary by Laura T. Murphy and Anasuya Syam

Published December 8, 2025

The Manifest Modernization Act enhances forced labor risk identification, assists Customs and Border Protection (CBP) in trade enforcement action, levels the playing field for legitimate trade, and creates a harmonized approach to data transparency in the United States.

Over the course of the last five to seven years, academics, think tanks, legal researchers, and the media have increasingly relied on U.S. customs records (also known as shipping manifests) to identify the import of forced-labor-made goods into the United States. For example, customs records revealed dozens of shipments of wigs made by Uyghur forced laborers that listed the address of one of the region's most notorious internment camps as the shipments' origin. Vietnamese laborers held in debt bondage in Taiwan's bike manufacturing industry made $400 million worth of elite bicycles that were shipped to the United States and Canada over 10 years, a fact that became clear to reporters when they reviewed publicly available U.S. customs records. In 2020, advocates petitioned the U.S. government to block Malaysian palm oil made with forced labor from the U.S. market after documenting details of the abuse and verifying supply chain links using customs data.

In all these cases, until researchers and journalists scrutinized publicly available ocean vessel manifest data, these forced-labor-made products entered the United States undeterred by U.S. CBP and were sold freely in U.S. stores and online.

The public availability of customs data has significantly enhanced the CBP's capacity to target illicit goods by empowering civil society, academics, media, and other stakeholders to analyze and publish information that leads to necessary enforcement action. This information is critical for ensuring robust enforcement of laws prohibiting the import of forced-labor-made goods, such as the U.S. Tariff Act of 1930, the Countering America's Adversaries through Sanctions Act (CAATSA), and the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA). It has also been useful in identifying counterfeits, transshipment, dumping, and sanctions evasions.

The benefits of disclosing customs data extend beyond U.S. borders as well. For example, Canadian NGOs have used U.S. import data to uncover forced labor ties to personal protective equipment (PPE), palm oil, and other goods entering the Canadian market, and the data has aided civil society in encouraging the Canadian government to catch up with the United States in addressing forced labor risks in its supply chains.

Despite the clear advantages of publishing customs records, the United States only makes a limited segment of customs data available to the public, leaving large swathes of trade activity invisible. Expanding access to customs records will increase the United States' (and other countries') ability to identify imports of forced-labor-made goods and protect legitimate international trade.

Background

A shipping manifest is the document required for all cargo carried by any vessel for transport internationally. Section 431 of the Tariff Act of 1930 mandates that all vessels arriving in the United States create and maintain a "manifest" containing details about their voyage and all cargo on board. The manifest includes data on the shipper and receiver of the cargo, country of origin, a description of the items included in the shipment, and the quantity, value, and weight of the goods.

For decades, the public has only had access to maritime shipping manifests and no other mode of transport. But this gap has not gone unnoticed.

An amendment in 1984 established a requirement to make publicly available information from these manifests. However, a series of confusing legislative amendments in the 1990s resulted in unintended restrictions on what types of vessel manifests can be publicly disclosed.

In 1996, Congress enacted the Anticounterfeiting Consumer Protection Act (ACPA) to enhance seizure of counterfeit goods through different modes of transport, including aircraft. To this end, ACPA sought to amend the Tariff Act of 1930 to extend public disclosure requirements to cover air cargo. However, this extended disclosure never materialized. Due to a drafting error in the 1996 Miscellaneous Trade and Technical Corrections Act that resulted in the term "vessel" being repeated twice in the statute, the additional disclosure requirement from the ACPA was interpreted by courts and CBP to apply only to "vessel" (ocean) shipments, even though Congress had apparently intended to include both air and sea cargo. As a result of this narrow interpretation, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) publicly releases only ocean shipping data, limiting transparency in ways unintended by Congress.

The Problem

A lack of publicly available data on cargo shipped to the United States in any non-ocean-going mode of transport leaves a significant blind spot.

CBP indicated in May 2025 that imports arriving by sea accounted for only 38 percent of the total import value. That means more than 60 percent of total U.S. imports enter the country via air or land. That's more than a billion shipments a year for which there is no public disclosure.

Many of the United States' most critical imports arrive by air and road. According to a July 2025 U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) report, "air cargo operations are critical for the secure and timely delivery of high-value, perishable, and time-sensitive goods like electronics, produce, and medical supplies." The GAO report also notes a surge in U.S. air cargo imports for certain goods, such as pharmaceuticals and perishables. Though multiple research reports have shown that these goods are highly vulnerable to being made with forced labor or otherwise being noncompliant with U.S. trade law, there is no public visibility into these products entering the U.S. market when they arrive by air or road.

This lacuna in publicly available data has a real impact on U.S. trade enforcement. CBP and the U.S. FLETF rely heavily on civil society, corporate, media, and academic allegations that identify products made with forced labor and imported into the United States. When these groups provide CBP and the FLETF with information suggesting that an importer is noncompliant, those allegations are typically accompanied by evidence that the products are entering the United States.

The Manifest Modernization Act

A bill recently introduced in Congress-the Manifest Modernization Act (MMA, S.1259)-seeks to amend the Tariff Act of 1930 to expand trade data disclosure requirements to all modes of transport.

The MMA is designed as a direct response to today's supply chain visibility gap that lets high-risk goods slip through our borders unchecked-whether they're counterfeit, tainted by forced labor, narcotics, or otherwise illicit. Issues with customs data visibility entered the public debate three years ago, in October 2022, when Associated Press published an exposé into a corporate campaign to reduce customs transparency by attempting to hide currently available ocean manifests from public disclosure. Associated Press noted that if this data were to be shrouded in secrecy, it would have an enormous impact on "researchers and reporters seeking to hold corporations accountable for the mistreatment of workers in their foreign supply chains."

Civil society organizations (CSOs) quickly responded. Thirty-eight labor groups and coalitions signed a letter addressed to the then CBP Commissioner Chris Magnus requesting that he dismiss this problematic proposal. The CSOs emphasized that the trajectory should be towards more data transparency, not less.

The MMA, reintroduced this Congress (and first introduced in 2023), would require public disclosure of manifest information for imports arriving by air, truck, and rail, in addition to the existing requirements for ocean carriers.

The Stakes

Publicly available manifest data has been used across a wide range of investigations to trace and expose forced labor in supply chains. The lack of information available on imports arriving by land and air has created a significant traceability gap and has thwarted efforts to understand how forced-labor-made goods are making their way into the U.S. market. It has provided an opportunity for those who knowingly import goods made using forced labor to avoid public scrutiny.

Indeed, thousands of products made with forced labor are likely entering U.S. borders through air or land transportation every single day.

Take, for example, shipments of products made in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR), which, under the UFLPA, are presumed to be made with forced labor and are thus prohibited from entry into the United States. Xinjiang customs authorities indicate that the region shipped $2.4 billion worth of goods to the United States in the first six months of 2025. In the years since the UFLPA went into effect, practically zero shipments from Xinjiang appear in ocean vessel manifest data available to the public. One hypothesis as to why these shipments are escaping public scrutiny is that they enter the United States via air. This is a critical gap in knowledge, especially seeing as pharmaceuticals are highly likely to be transported via air and many major Chinese pharmaceutical companies are manufacturing in the XUAR. The public disclosure of air freight under the MMA would aid in understanding how these goods continue to enter the United States despite the significant regulatory barriers.

Small packages are also a significant avenue through which forced-labor-made goods reach American consumers. E-commerce shipments are typically sent through express courier services via air freight. Congress has repeatedly raised concerns regarding the working conditions and safety of products entering our market from international e-commerce platforms. While media and NGO reports have alleged that many of these products are made with forced labor, child labor, or other labor exploitation, there is currently no visibility into what products are shipped in these individual business-to-consumer packages when they arrive via air or road transport. Thus, passage of the Manifest Modernization Act would provide greater insight into potential violations in the small package environment as well.

More information on air and land cargo will certainly help bolster coordination under the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA)'s provisions to identify and monitor cross-border movement of goods made with forced labor. There are concerns that goods with high forced labor risks could be routed through Canada or Mexico-either as raw inputs or finished products-masking their true origin. The current data blind spot severely impairs civil society's ability to effectively trace forced labor risks in North American supply chains and support the enforcement of our forced labor laws.

Industry Concerns

Expanded transparency should be welcomed by the trade community. Indeed, the bill has been endorsed by several industry associations, as well as dozens of labor rights groups, supply chain data providers, law enforcement, national security, and NGOs that span the political spectrum.

Despite the demonstrated importance of transparency, the MMA has received some pushback. Detractors contend that the added obligations to disclose aircraft, railway, and trucking data would compromise business confidential information, give competitors access to proprietary information, or be too burdensome.

These concerns are misplaced. The MMA limits the information disclosed to precisely the same as that disclosed for cargo shipped by sea. There is no increased risk in expanding to other modes of transport. Furthermore, for data that might be deemed sensitive, U.S. law already grants both importers and shippers the right to request confidentiality of their data on a case-by-case basis (19 C.F.R. § 103.31). Some businesses prefer the reduced transparency because it decreases competition for their customers and suppliers. Under the MMA, all imports would be transparent, ensuring fair competition, which could reduce consumer costs and increase corporations' ability to identify suppliers that are compliant with U.S. law.

Others worry that manifest transparency would represent an additional burden on the exporters and importers. However, exporters already submit this information as part of their standard data disclosures when shipping goods to the United States. There is no additional data disclosure required by the shipper or importer. The only difference is that CBP will make the data related to these additional routes available to the verified data publishers who already publish the ocean manifest data. Those data publishers provide the trade community, law enforcement, and other interested stakeholders the added advantage of processing the data in ways that make the discovery of forced labor, trade fraud, and other illicit activity more likely.

Far from being a risk or a burden to legitimate importers, a harmonized approach to public data disclosure across the various modes of transport actually makes it less likely that importers will use air, rail, or land transport as a way to hide illicit activity.

Increased Data Means Increased Trade Security

Increased transparency levels the playing field for legitimate business and allows for greater scrutiny of those businesses that choose to import goods made with forced labor. The ocean vessel manifest data disclosed under the current law has been critical in uncovering myriad trade violations-not only forced labor, but also counterfeits, illegal transshipment and dumping, sanctions evasion, and illicit drug trafficking. Furthermore, companies can use this data to more accurately trace their own supply chains and identify risky suppliers. By making air, rail, and road transport data publicly available, the U.S. government will eliminate the risk of bad actors using those means to hide their shipments from public scrutiny.

If the United States passes this law, it could have ripple effects for legitimate trade globally. It will create an opportunity for Canada and Mexico to follow suit and put into action the commitments they made under USMCA. The United States' actions might also influence other allied nations to share their customs data in the interest of public safety and to aid in the collective response to goods made with forced labor. Given the recent announcements of trade agreement provisions requiring forced labor import bans, the United States has a new opportunity to encourage manifest transparency globally.

Laura T. Murphy is a senior associate (non-resident) in the Human Rights Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C. Anasuya Syam is the human rights and trade policy director at the Human Trafficking Legal Center.

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