The Department of Labor’s recent forced labor determination could push Jakarta into further dependence on China and Chinese firms.
On September 10, the United States Department of Labor (DOL) added Indonesian nickel to its list of goods produced by child or forced labor. Nickel is a critical mineral with applications in steelmaking, aircraft engines and turbines, and perhaps most prominently in renewable energy and vehicles, where it is one of the key components of nickel-manganese-cobalt (NMC) lithium-ion batteries.
This listing highlights the dominance of Indonesia’s nickel sector by Chinese firms and deals yet another blow to the country’s aspirations to secure a critical minerals-specific free trade agreement (CMS-FTA) with the United States.
But the listing also clarifies one of the dangers the United States courts by not engaging with middle-income and developing countries in developing and diversifying critical mineral supply chains: the U.S. absence cedes the field to business interests with a decidedly different approach to human rights standards and practices.
For the rest of this article: https://thediplomat.com/2024/09/us-forced-labor-ruling-on-indonesian-nickel-could-backfire/