President Donald Trump’s pushback against Chinese takeover of U.S. industry is in full swing as the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has officially blocked an effort by China to buy the Chicago Stock Exchange.
“We have concluded that the Exchange has not met its burden to show that approval of the proposed rule change is appropriate,” the SEC said in an order posted on its website blocking the sale, per Politico. “Accordingly, it is not necessary for us to consider either the relevance of such foreign investment concerns to our statutory review of this proposed rule change or the merits of the concerns themselves.”
The proposal, which was first pitched in early 2016, had been panned across the aisle by lawmakers and even by Trump himself on the campaign trail.
“China bought the Chicago Stock Exchange — China, a Chinese company,” Trump said in a debate in South Carolina in early 2016. “They are taking our jobs. They are taking our wealth. They are taking our base.”
Rep. Robert Pittenger (R-NC), who faces a tough re-election battle against conservative Mark Harris in his primary, helped lead a bipartisan effort to crush the deal.
“This has been a long fight, and I am grateful we now have a president who recognizes the national security threats of allowing a Chinese government-affiliated company to own the Chicago Stock Exchange,” Pittenger said when the Trump SEC crushed the deal on Friday. “The Obama Administration was misguided and fully endorsed this transaction.”
Previously, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) had in a Breitbart News exclusive called on the Trump SEC to block this sale.
“Our government considers our stock exchanges—a key part of our national financial market infrastructure—to be ‘self-regulatory organizations,’ and presumes that each exchange is fully capable of managing the risk inherent in its operations,” Manchin said in a statement to Breitbart News last July. “The Chinese government’s continued rejection of fundamental free-market norms and property rights of private citizens makes me strongly doubt whether an Exchange operating under the direct control of a Chinese entity can be trusted to ‘self-regulate’ now and in the future.”
Manchin added in his statement at the time that Chinese currency manipulation could negatively influence U.S. markets if the deal was approved.
“I fear that that the challenges plaguing the Chinese market—lack of transparency, currency manipulation, etc.—will bleed into the Chicago Stock Exchange and adversely impact financial markets across the country,” Manchin said in his statement provided to Breitbart News exclusively. “As we continue to employ the greatest lengths of diplomacy to shore up our relationship with China, we must not forget their desire to emerge on top of the international market as the sole global power.”
Manchin spearheaded a letter to the SEC’s chairman Jay Clayton and commissioners Kara M. Stein and Michael S. Piwowar, in which the West Virginia Democrat up for re-election this year called for them to reject the proposed sale of the Chicago Stock Exchange to Chongqing Casin Enterprise Group (CCEG), a group that includes U.S. and Chinese investors.
This move by the Trump administration comes in the wake of new tariffs the president has levied upon Chinese solar panel imports, and as the president considers action against Chinese steel and aluminum dumping.