WASHINGTON, D.C.-- Chairman John Moolenaar (R-MI) of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, Chairman Mark Green (R-TN) of the House Homeland Security Committee, and Rep. Carlos Gimenez (R-FL) released the below statement following news that the Department of Homeland Security's Forced Labor Enforcement Task Force placed new Chinese companies on its forced labor entity list, which are tied to both CATL and Gotion. CATL and Gotion are Chinese Communist Party-affiliated electric vehicle battery companies with plans to build and operate new facilities in the United States, partially financed by federal and state taxpayer dollars. “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.” Background: On June 5, 2024, the Select Committee, the Committee on Homeland Security, and Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) exposed CATL and Gotion’s connections to two companies heavily involved in forced labor—Xinjiang Nonferrous and Xinjiang Joinworld. Today, the Department of Homeland Security’s Forced Labor Enforcement Task Force placed both companies on the forced labor entity list, which immediately prohibits the import of these two companies’ products and any product tied to their supply chains. |
