US Republican Senator Marco Rubio warned on Tuesday of Ford’s joint venture with China’s Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt and Indonesia’s PT Valea subsidiary of a Brazil-based mining conglomerate, noting that the manufacturer could be at the mercy of the Chinese Communist Party.
In different letters sent to the Secretary of the Treasury, Janet Yellen; Attorney General Merrick Garland and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, among others, highlighted her concern and called for an investigation.
The car manufacturer announced on March 30 that it will invest in Indonesia, along with Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt and PT Vale Indonesia, to more cheaply extract thousands of tons of nickel that it will use in the production of batteries for electric vehicles (EVs).
Rubio stressed in his letters that Huayou participates in the “Belt and Road Initiative” (BRI), also known as the New Silk Road, and that PT Vale has “a long history” of support for the BRI, China and companies controlled by the Communist Party.
According to EFE sources from Rubio’s cabinet, Ford’s capital in the joint venture “is not a majority”, which leaves the US automobile company “at the mercy of the Communist Party.”
In his letter to the acting director of the Office of Customs and Border Protection (CBP), Troy Miller, Rubio asks him to investigate if this joint venture will cause them to be imported into the United States “goods made in whole or in part with forced or child labor“.
The senator further stressed to Yellen and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo that Ford’s involvement “in advancing China’s geopolitical strategy cannot be ignored.”
He also asked them to work to quickly implement a mechanism that would hold Ford accountable “for cooperating with human traffickers and slavers” in that strategy.
In turn, the Republican senator stressed to the Secretary of State that “US officials should condemn efforts to undermine the strategic interests of the United States, not support them,” and asked him what disciplinary measures he is willing to take to address the situation.
Rubio said he fears that there will be “people within Ford’s executive leadership subservient to the Communist Party” that they act “as China’s unregistered foreign agents in their meetings with US government officials,” and asked Garland to investigate whether this is true.
Lisa Drake, vice president of Ford Model e, the business unit dedicated to the production of electric vehicles, said in March that the pact assured her company “direct control to obtain the nickel” it needs to produce electric vehicles at low cost, and added that nickel mining and production would be done sustainably.
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