Volkswagen announced that an independent audit of its joint venture site in Xinjiang, China, conducted by the German firm Loening Human Rights & Responsible Business GmbH, found no signs of forced labor. This outcome emerges amidst heightened global concern over alleged human rights abuses in the region.
it's literally just protectionist policies by the US that have to be justified by something else for whatever reason
Exactly, US created this whole free trade narrative and now they want to circumvent it and need ways to justify that.
They've always been willing to pull up the ladder, as Ha Joon Chang puts it.