Former President Donald Trump said in a social media post Tuesday night that he fully opposes a China-linked, Democrat-backed electric vehicle battery parts factory proposed for construction in Michigan.
The subsidiary Gotion said:Fully owned and controlledGoshon Hi-Tech, a China-based battery manufacturer, plans to build a large manufacturing facility in Green Charter Township, Michigan, with the help of state and federal subsidies. However, the company has numerous ties to the Chinese Communist Party through its parent company and has benefited from Chinese subsidies.
Trump told Truth Social he is “100 percent” opposed to the project.
“A few weeks ago, Gochon, a Chinese electric vehicle battery company backed by Michigan Democrats, claimed I support their proposed EV battery factory in Northern Michigan. That is not true,” Trump said in the post. “The Gochon factory would be very bad for our state and our country. It would put Michiganders under the control of the Chinese Communist Party in Beijing. I am 100% against it! As President, I will make the American auto industry bigger and stronger than ever, protect American workers, and end the Green New Scam.” (Related article: Battery maker with ties to China's Communist Party spends billions on lobbying efforts under Congressional scrutiny)
Michigan Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer and Michigan Democrats Sign-off The company has granted $175 million in incentives to benefit Gotion in April 2023. Done The company is also applying for tax credits under the Inflation Control Act (IRA), President Joe Biden's signature climate change bill. Many local residents oppose the project, and have voted to remove several local officials who supported Gotion's plans. Chuck Thelen, Gotion's vice president of North American operations, said: POLITICO On August 23, the company announced that the Chinese Communist Party has no presence in its North American offices.
However, Gochon's Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) documentThe report, filed in July, revealed that “Guoxuan is subsidized in part by funds provided by the government of the People's Republic of China.” An investigation by the Daily Caller News Foundation also revealed that as of 2022, Guoxuan High-Tech employed more than 900 Chinese Communist Party members, including its CEO, and that in 2017, a roving group of Chinese Communist Party members set up a so-called recruitment “workstation” at Guoxuan's California headquarters.
The DCNF also found video footage showing Goshon Hi-Tech employees dressed as Red Army soldiers and pledging allegiance to the Chinese Communist Party during a company trip. In a separate DCNF investigation, the agency found that in 2016, Goshon Hi-Tech had formed a joint venture with a company designated by the State Department as a “subsidiary of a Chinese Communist Party military enterprise.”
A group of Republican lawmakers in June asked the Department of Homeland Security to effectively blacklist Goshon Hi-Tech and another Chinese battery company, CATL, for their ties to forced labor in China's Xinjiang region. Thelen said in late June that the lawmakers' claims were “completely false and clearly intended to deceive.” According to Local news outlet “The Pioneer.”
Republican Reps. Darin LaHood of Illinois and John Moolenaar of Michigan represent the areas in Michigan where Gotion wants to build and are chairman of the House Select Committee on CCP. Introduced The NO GOTION Act will be introduced in November 2023 to prohibit Chinese Communist Party-linked companies from cashing out IRA tax deductions. The bill would also apply to companies with ties to the Russian, North Korean and Iranian governments.
Former CIA Director Leon Panetta told Congress in January that the Chinese Communist Party could use Gochon's Michigan facility “to obtain interests that are, frankly, adverse to the interests of the United States.” Gochon also schedule The facility is planned to be built in Illinois, but the office of Illinois' Democratic governor, J.B. Pritzker, suggested in September 2023 that opposition to the plan was inflammatory and xenophobic.
Representatives for Goto and Goto Hi-Tech did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
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