On Friday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “Your World,” Rep. John Garamendi (D-CA) stated that there is a threat from China “using various front organizations,” buying up land around military bases and having the ability “to gather information that we do not want them to have.”
Garamendi said, [relevant remarks begin around 0:55] “[T]here are a lot of threats. Right now, I’ve been working on another one, and that is the Chinese, using various front organizations, are buying up land around military bases.”
Host Neil Cavuto then cut in to ask, “Would you put a stop to that, Congressman, not only the buying up land, but even in Michigan working on this factory with Ford that will provide EV batteries and the rest, electric vehicle batteries? Would you cool it on that kind of stuff, would you go so far as to forbid it?”
Garamendi responded, “I’m going to follow it very, very carefully, Neil. I’m not going to go jump off the end of the pier here. But we do know that it is possible around [some] of our bases for an adversary, China or another adversary, to acquire land and be able to gather information that we do not want them to have. So, that’s an issue. There are multiple issues. … We do most definitely have a supply chain issue. We cannot be dependent upon China or Iran or any other adversary for the critical minerals that are necessary for our current economy and certainly…for our future electric vehicle economy and for solar and so forth, all of those things. We have to be able to secure that. And that means not only bring[ing] it back home, as we should, but also bring it into an orbit of friendly countries.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
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