Republican Florida Sen. Marco Rubio is demanding the Biden administration launch investigations into a joint business venture involving Ford Motor Co. and China-based Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt Company, the Daily Caller has learned.
Rubio wrote letters Tuesday to Customs and Border Protection Acting Commissioner Troy Miller, Attorney General Merrick Garland, Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, and Secretary of State Antony Blinken requesting investigations into the business agreement. (RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: Sens. Marco Rubio, Joni Ernst Introduce Legislation To Deny Federal Funds To TikTok Business Partners)
It is essential that American businesses understand the Chinese Communist Party is not their ally and never will be.
Xi only cares about what is good for the party. Companies need to decouple from Beijing’s genocidal regime once and for all.
https://t.co/8wTYL2tMjr— Senator Marco Rubio (@SenMarcoRubio) April 27, 2023
Ford announced a joint business venture in March with Chinese mining company Huayou Cobalt and PT Vale Indonesia to create a nickel processing plant in Indonesia. Rubio voiced his concerns about the national security implications of the agreement given China’s ongoing competition with the U.S.
“In remarks published on April 4, 2023, four days after a Ford press release characterized the joint venture as a project under PRC’s BRI, [U.S. Ambassador to Indonesia Sung] Kim celebrated the agreement stating: ‘I am deeply impressed by all the work that has gone into making this partnership a reality’ … In reality, this project makes America more dependent on the PRC. American officials should be condemning efforts to undermine the strategic interests of the United States, not endorsing them,” Rubio wrote to Blinken.
Huayou Senior Vice President George Fang described the project as “one of the flagship projects under the Belt and Road Initiative,” China’s global infrastructure plan designed to boost its economic strength internationally, according to the letter. Rubio is specifically worried about how Ford’s involvement with the BRI jeopardizes U.S. national security. (RELATED: Sen. Marco Rubio Sides With Unions In Ongoing Railroad Dispute)
“In light of Ford’s explicit complicity in the BRI, one of Beijing’s principle geopolitical strategies, I fear there may be individuals within the executive leadership of Ford who are subservient to the CCP and acting as unregistered foreign agents of the PRC in their meetings and outreach to U.S. government officials. I urge the U.S. Department of Justice to determine if this is the case and to take appropriate legal action against those who are in violation of FARA,” Rubio wrote to Garland.
Additionally, Rubio expressed fears about potential human rights implications because of the well-documented instances of child labor and forced labor in China.
“I respectfully request an investigation into whether Ford’s joint venture will result in imported goods made in whole or in part with forced labor or child labor,” Rubio said to Miller.
He demanded Ford face accountability from the Biden administration for supporting China’s geopolitical ambitions at the expense of the U.S. economy and national security.
“I hope you will work to expeditiously implement such a policy mechanism to hold Ford accountable for cooperating with human traffickers and slavers in advancing the PRC’s geopolitical strategy, to the detriment of American economic development and national security,” Rubio wrote to Raimondo and Yellen.
Ford did not immediately respond to a request for comment.