Moolenaar Responds to WSJ: Mercedes Should Divest Chinese Ownership to Compete in U.S.

Chairman John Moolenaar of the Select Committee on China wrote a letter to the editor at the Wall Street Journal in response to its editorial criticizing his bipartisan Connected Vehicles Security Act. The legislation would ban the importation, manufacture, and sale of connected vehicles, software, and hardware linked to China.

Moolenaar writes:

No one is trying to ban Mercedes Benz from the U.S. market, as your editorial “Republicans Go for a UAW Ride” (July 27) claims. You left out of your analysis that the German-based, Chinese-owned automaker could continue to operate in America even under the Connected Vehicle Security Act by simply having its Chinese shareholders divest so that the company is under the proposed act’s equity limit. The Journal’s line of thinking requires us to believe that Mercedes Benz would choose to fire at least 7,500 Americans and lose the U.S. market to keep two Chinese owners.

This legislation, which I’m leading in the House of Representatives, passed unanimously from the Senate Commerce Committee and has more than 80 bipartisan co-sponsors across both chambers. The lawmakers supporting it recognize that China’s massive state-subsidized overcapacity in automaking has crippled Europe’s automakers and poses a threat to our nation’s auto industry.

Too many of our nation’s banks, corporations and media outlets still cling to poorly reasoned China apologetics, despite ample evidence they shouldn’t. No amount of trade liberalization will make the Chinese Communist Party for free markets or free people, and it isn’t “rent-seeking” to acknowledge that fact. Our nation’s broader industrial base has been hollowed out by willful blindness and a dogmatic insistence that we continue granting Chinese companies all the privileges of our market without demanding reciprocal treatment for our own companies.

The Select Committee on China looks forward to working with companies and institutions that want to seriously address the threats our country faces from China’s communists. The Connected Vehicle Security Act is a vital step to doing so.