Moolenaar: “Parents Should Know These Toys are Being Made by People Forced to Work Against Their Will”
In case you missed it, Chairman John Moolenaar of the Select Committee recently told The New York Times that the use of slave labor cotton in the production of Labubus is “unsurprising and unacceptable.”
"The use of slave labor cotton in these products is unsurprising and unacceptable," said Moolenaar in a full quote provided to the Times. "Parents should know these toys are being made by people forced to work against their will by the Chinese Communist Party as part of a genocide. The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act must be enforced and these products should be prohibited from being imported into America unless clearly proven otherwise.”
Some Labubu Dolls Contain Cotton Banned by Forced Labor Law, Testing Shows
By Ana Swanson, Sapna Maheshwari, and Meaghan Tobin
Published April 23, 2026
The New York Times
Over the past two years, a furry monster with bunny ears and a vicious line of serrated teeth became the subject of a global craze, as shoppers waited hours in line or paid hundreds or thousands of dollars for the most coveted Labubus.
The boom turned Pop Mart, the Chinese company that sells Labubus, into a global brand. But a test of the doll — the results of which The New York Times has independently confirmed — showed that clothing on certain Labubu dolls contains cotton from the Xinjiang region of western China, which the U.S. government has banned because of its association with forced labor.
For businesses like Pop Mart, selling products that contain cotton banned in the United States could have severe consequences. Companies found in violation of a 2021 law that restricts imports from Xinjiang can be put on a blacklist that bans all their products. The ban does not apply to importers that can prove goods were not made with forced labor.
A spokeswoman for Pop Mart said that it would conduct an investigation into the presence of Xinjiang cotton in its supply chains, and that the company held itself and its suppliers to “the highest standards.” Pop Mart said that only a small percentage of its dolls used cotton for apparel, and that it was working on a plan to use alternative materials, rather than cotton, in its products for the U.S. market.
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The Times bought 20 Labubus that were listed as containing cotton late last year from various retailers and had them independently examined to identify the source of the cotton. Independent experts examined the dolls for the Times but asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the topic.
Pieces of clothing from 16 of the 20 dolls were identified as containing cotton from Xinjiang, mainly their T-shirts. The dolls themselves are primarily made of polyester, but the outer part of some of the dolls, including the clothes, are described as containing cotton.
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In 2021, Congress passed the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which banned any product made in whole or in part in Xinjiang, unless the importer could prove it was not made with forced labor. The bill’s chief architect was Marco Rubio, a longtime critic of China, who was then a Republican senator and is now secretary of state. He has described the treatment of Uyghurs as genocide.
The law also established an “entity list” of companies in Xinjiang that use forced labor to mine or manufacture goods. That list has 144 entries, though no new companies have been added since the Biden administration.
Xinjiang produces more than 90 percent of China’s cotton, and about a fifth of the world’s cotton overall. Past investigations by The Times and others found Xinjiang cotton in the supply chains of many major retailers, though fear of penalties has led companies to adopt more rigorous vetting in recent years.
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Several lawmakers who were informed about the test results called for Labubus to be blocked from the United States. Representative John Moolenaar of Michigan, the Republican chairman of the House Select Committee on China, called the situation “unsurprising and unacceptable,” while Representative Ro Khanna of California, the committee’s highest-ranking Democrat, said it was evidence of the Trump administration’s failure to enforce trade laws.
“Pop Mart should prove that all of its dolls in the United States are slave-labor-free,” said Representative Christopher H. Smith of New Jersey, a Republican who is a co-chair for the Congressional-Executive Commission on China. “If they cannot, customs has the authority to stop all Labubu imports, and I will ask them to do so.”
The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act has rarely been used against consumer companies, and never for a product as viral as the Labubu, said Adrian Zenz, an expert on Uyghur forced labor.
Under the law, if an interagency government panel reviews the evidence and finds that a company has violated the act, it can add the company to a sanctions list that would make it illegal to import any of their products. Customs officials can also detain the company’s shipments and demand an accounting of its supply chain, he said.
Read the full article here.