Breaking News | Chinese rail giant building T's new Orange and Red Line cars warns of production shutdown as parts held up at the U.S. border

Another blow for the T: Springfield plant building new Red and Orange line cars running out of parts as Chinese owner faces Trump administration crackdown on imports made with forced labor

Beijing-based CRRC Corp. appeared to have finally turned the corner on its troubled deal with the MBTA to build desperately needed new Red and Orange line cars.

After hundreds of millions of dollars in overruns and years of delays, CRRC had largely stopped delivering new train cars riddled with defects, while also picking up production.

But now CRRC faces a new challenge that, unless it is resolved soon, threatens to shut down production of new train cars for the T at the company’s Springfield factory, Contrarian Boston has learned.

The Trump administration is holding up new train car shells for the T and other key components at ports on the U.S. border. The Chinese rail giant had been attempting to import the parts for assembly at its Springfield factory, according to a letter by Zhaofu Wang, CRRC’s president, obtained by Contrarian Boston.

The holdup, in turn, is tied to longstanding U.S. prohibitions against the import of products and other materials that may have been produced by forced, or slave, labor in the Xinjiang region, where the Chinese government has “detained and “reeducated more than 1 million Uyghurs and other Muslim ethnic and religious minorities,” per the Center for Strategic & International Studies.

In 2014, CRRC won a contract to build hundreds of new Red and Orange Line cars for the T to replace an aging fleet that dated, in some cases, to the 1960s and 70s. The cost of the contract has since doubled to more than $1 billion, while CRRC has pushed out completion of the work to 2027.

The holdup at U.S. customs facilities of the T train parts began in early May, according to the letter by Wang, CRRC’s president.

In the letter, CRRC's chief claims the company “responded promptly” to concerns raised by CPB officials with two rounds of documentation.

CPB has now initiated a third request for documentation, “requiring full traceability of certain raw materials—down to the level of ore extraction and smelting,” according to the letter by CRRC’s president, dated June 20.

“This level of scrutiny, while legally framed under UFLPA, appears to be part of a broader geopolitical context, and not reflective of any non-compliance or wrongdoing by our company,” the CRRC president writes.

For their part, T officials say they are monitoring the situation and pushed back against the idea that a shutdown in production at the CRRC’s Springfield plant looms.

The final batch of the 152 Orange Line cars ordered by the T is slated to be delivered in the fall, while 22 new Red Line cars are in various stages of production at the Springfield factory.

There are enough train car shells and other components to keep the production line “moving at least through the end of the year,” a T spokesperson said in a statement to Contrarian Boston.

“What - if any - impacts this current issue has on the future delivery schedule is not immediately clear, but the MBTA and its contractor are committed to finding a resolution that allows production to continue well past this year,” the T spokesperson said in a statement.