H.R. 10346 is only an introduced bill, but its design shows how forced-labour enforcement could move from corporate due diligence into market access.
A bill introduced in the United States House of Representatives on 10 September could turn labour conditions in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s cobalt sector into a direct market-access issue. H.R. 10346, titled the Stop China’s Exploitation of Congolese Children and Adult Forced Labor through Cobalt Mining Act, has not become law. It has been referred to the House Committee on Ways and Means. But the mechanism it proposes deserves attention now.
The bill’s stated purpose is to prevent goods made using or containing cobalt extracted or processed with child or forced labour in the DRC from entering the United States market. That moves the issue beyond reputational corporate responsibility. If legislation of this type advances, companies would face a commercial requirement to prove how cobalt moved through the supply chain and under what labour conditions.
The US Department of Labor already lists cobalt ore from the DRC in its research on goods associated with child labour and forced labour. The department describes forced-labour indicators in parts of the Copperbelt, including inability to refuse hazardous work, abusive overtime, threats of dismissal and wage withholding. It has also documented the presence of child labour in artisanal and small-scale cobalt mining.
The DRC is central to the global cobalt economy. The mineral is used in lithium-ion batteries and other industrial applications, placing Congolese supply chains inside electric vehicles, consumer electronics and energy-storage systems. The country’s scale gives it enormous strategic importance, but it also means labour-compliance rules aimed at cobalt can propagate through global manufacturing.
The commercial mechanism is traceability. A mineral can pass from an artisanal mine to a trader, processor, refiner, battery-material producer and manufacturer before the finished product reaches the United States. If market access depends on proving the absence of prohibited labour, every participant needs records that link the product to compliant sources. The burden therefore extends beyond the mine.
That can become a trade barrier even without a tariff. A compliant producer with strong chain-of-custody systems may gain access to buyers while a supplier unable to document origin becomes commercially risky. Banks, insurers and traders can respond by requiring additional documentation before financing inventory. Buyers may prefer larger industrial mines because they perceive them as easier to audit, even when artisanal supply can be legitimate.
This creates a difficult policy challenge for the DRC. Artisanal mining provides livelihoods to large numbers of people. Excluding artisanal cobalt from international supply chains entirely could push activity further into informality rather than improve conditions. The stronger approach is formalisation: registered mining zones, transparent purchasing, safer work, labour monitoring and traceability that allows compliant artisanal production to remain marketable.
The title of H.R. 10346 also introduces a geopolitical element by explicitly referring to China. Chinese companies have significant positions in the DRC’s cobalt and copper value chains. US policy increasingly treats critical minerals as an economic-security issue, so labour enforcement can intersect with strategic competition. Congolese policymakers should therefore separate two questions: improving labour conditions because it is necessary, and protecting the country’s ability to trade with multiple global markets.
For mining companies, compliance is becoming part of product quality. Traditionally, a buyer evaluated grade, volume, price and delivery. Modern critical-mineral contracts increasingly include environmental, social and governance requirements, sanctions screening, origin verification and human-rights due diligence. A tonne of cobalt with weak provenance can be commercially inferior to an equivalent tonne with auditable provenance.
For African suppliers outside the DRC, the trend matters as well. Similar mechanisms can be applied to other minerals and agricultural commodities. Companies that build traceability systems before regulation forces them to do so may gain an advantage in high-value export markets.
It is important not to overstate the immediate effect. H.R. 10346 is an introduced bill, not US law, and its final form could change or it may never be enacted. No company should treat it as an existing prohibition. But businesses should treat it as evidence of policy direction.
For exporters, the most valuable preparation is to build evidence before a customs challenge occurs. Mine-level audits, trader records, chain-of-custody systems and grievance mechanisms can be expensive, but reconstructing them after a shipment is questioned is more expensive. The same logic applies to downstream buyers. Manufacturers that cannot identify where cobalt entered their supply chain may inherit legal and reputational risk from suppliers several tiers away. Compliance therefore becomes a data problem as well as a labour problem. Firms able to connect physical material to reliable records will have an advantage as governments move toward more aggressive forced-labour enforcement.
The decisive implication for Congo is that mineral competitiveness is becoming inseparable from compliance infrastructure. Geology determines whether cobalt exists; traceability may increasingly determine where that cobalt can be sold. The DRC can protect market access by making proof of responsible production easier, more credible and more inclusive than exclusionary supply-chain rules imposed from abroad.
