Our great country is celebrating 250 years of independence. That’s on 250 years of freedom, innovation, and economic strength that all began with the strong and simple declaration that we would no longer be controlled by a hostile foreign power.
Today, maintaining that independence is not just a political necessity; it’s an economic one too. The threat is real, and countering it starts in our factories, our supply chains, and our homes.
For too long, we’ve allowed foreign adversaries, including the Chinese Communist Party, to quietly take control of the brands Americans trust, the infrastructure Americans depend on, and the household products Americans bring into their living rooms. They didn’t get there only through espionage or cyberattacks. They got there through deals, acquisitions, and joint ventures that most Americans never saw coming.
Put simply, buying products made here is no longer enough on its own. We need to ask who owns the company making it.
Once that Chinese appliance, smart bulb, or other device is connected to your Wi-Fi, Xi Jinping’s thugs could then have an opening to weasel their way in to spy on and disrupt every aspect of your family’s life.
Just pause and think about everything we entrust to apps, online banking, and social media. Now imagine it all being pipelined straight to a state-affiliated hacker farm in Communist China. Then imagine those hackers now having an off switch to disrupt every utility and service your family relies on.
That’s not a free and independent America, but it’s the one we’re willingly paying for right now.
Take GE Appliances. Most Americans still think it’s still the same all-American brand. Not anymore. In 2016, it was sold to Haier, a company whose roots trace back to a Chinese state-owned factory and that has operated for decades under Beijing’s close watch. That brand now sits in millions of American kitchens, connected to home networks, drawing power from our grid. Americans buying that product have no idea who is really on the other end. But China knows what they’re doing here. They’re listening to you — all the while tapped into our power and water grids. The Soviet Union only wished it could have had the same access to Americans’ information.
Last month, the Washington Post heralded Haier for bringing jobs back to America under the GE Appliances name. In the piece, GE Appliances leadership claims they would never hand Americans’ data over to Beijing. But they don’t get to make that choice.
Under China’s police state laws, no Chinese company can refuse a government data request. No exceptions. That means every Chinese-owned brand operating on American soil is a potential instrument of Beijing.
Zhang Ruimin, former CEO and chairman, has long-standing ties to the CCP. Zhou Yunjie, current chairman of the board of directors and CEO of Haier Group, is a Deputy to the National People’s Congress. Haier has been promoted by the state as a model of a successful Chinese enterprise, which means pleasing Xi Jinping comes before protecting customers.
Then there is Lenovo, which acquired Motorola Mobility from Google in 2014. Lenovo is a Chinese company with deep ties to the Chinese Academy of Sciences, a state-linked institution. Yet Motorola Mobility smartphones sit in the pockets of American workers, law enforcement officers, and government contractors, connected to voice, location, and network data around the clock. Think about all the personal and data that goes through those phones and how it could be used against those officials to blackmail them and undermine our safety.
Meanwhile, in South Carolina, Electrolux announced a joint venture with Midea, a Chinese-owned appliance giant, that includes partial operational control of a factory in Anderson, South Carolina. Not only does this further expose American information and our infrastructure, but now 1,200 American workers are temporarily displaced while a CCP-linked company moves into their plant. This is happening right now to real American workers in real American communities, to American workers and their jobs today.
In response, President Trump made his position clear. He’s called on every federal agency to buy American, close waiver loopholes, and implement policies that prevent the federal government from purchasing foreign products when great American alternatives already exist.
He’s right. This is exactly how we become less dependent on foreign nations, create more American jobs, and protect our country.
Still, there’s more we can do. My PROTECT the Grid Act would direct the Department of Commerce to assess exactly how deeply CCP-linked smart devices have penetrated American homes and our power grid and create a clear pathway to cut off that access before it’s too late.
If we want to remain truly independent, we cannot keep handing our adversaries the keys to our economy, our infrastructure, and our power grid, one appliance, one joint venture, one government contract at a time.
Communist China is playing the long game. It is time we started playing ours — and playing to win.
***
Rick Scott is currently serving as a U.S. Senator from Florida.
.png)
.png)
