WASHINGTON—President Donald Trump signed legislation on Wednesday calling for sanctions against those responsible for repression of Uyghur Muslims in China’s Xinjiang province, the White House said in a statement.
The bill, which passed the U.S. Congress nearly unanimously, was intended to send China a strong message on human rights by mandating sanctions against those responsible for oppression of members of China’s Muslim minority.
The United Nations estimates that more than a million Muslims have been detained in camps in Xinjiang.
Trump issued a “signing statement” saying that some of the bill’s sanctions requirements might limit his constitutional authority as president to conduct diplomacy so he would regard them as advisory, not mandatory.
