East Michigan News

Chairman John Moolenaar of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, Chairman Mark Green of the House Homeland Security Committee, and Representative Carlos Gimenez have expressed their views following a recent action by the Department of Homeland Security's Forced Labor Enforcement Task Force. The task force has added new Chinese companies to its forced labor entity list, which are linked to CATL and Gotion. These companies are associated with the Chinese Communist Party and are involved in electric vehicle battery production with plans for facilities in the United States, funded partly by federal and state taxpayer money.

The lawmakers stated: “While we are pleased with this initial step, we remain concerned that CATL and Gotion’s supply chains are deeply tied to the Xinjiang region. It is past time to stop spending taxpayer dollars partnering with Gotion and CATL. American companies should cut ties with these Chinese Communist Party-aligned battery companies and focus on developing a resilient supply chain free of forced labor. The Biden-Harris Administration rules that would allow American taxpayer dollars to subsidize Chinese batteries tainted by slave labor must also be reversed. Additionally, we must advance our bipartisan legislation, the Decoupling from Foreign Adversarial Battery Dependency Act, to not only eradicate forced labor from U.S. supply chains but to reduce our dependency on China.”

Earlier this year, on June 5, 2024, the Select Committee along with the Committee on Homeland Security and Senator Marco Rubio revealed connections between CATL and Gotion to two companies involved in forced labor—Xinjiang Nonferrous and Xinjiang Joinworld. Following this revelation, both companies have been placed on the forced labor entity list by DHS's task force. This move prohibits importing products from these companies or any related supply chains.