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“We literally sold our middle class out to China so that rich people could make money selling you cheap garbage from China,” Ohio GOP Senate candidate Bernie Moreno said in an ad released last summer. It was meant as a condemnation of wealthy elites’ ties to China, but in retrospect, it sounds more like an admission.
Moreno, a multimillionaire who made his fortune in part as an owner of car dealerships, has repeatedly claimed he refused to sell a Chinese-made General Motors SUV, the Envision, as part of his principled defense of the U.S. auto industry.
But that wasn't exactly true — and Moreno is facing backlash for it. Labor leaders in Ohio, including those who support Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown’s re-election bid, are teeing off on Moreno for lying about selling the model. A spokesperson for Moreno told Spectrum News, “In response to the closure of the Lordstown Plant here in Ohio [in March 2019], Bernie made a decision to stop any new inventory of Envision’s from being sold at his dealership. After he sold off the inventory he already had on the lot, he refused to take orders for more Envisions. There is zero contradiction here.”
To be clear: China is a major player in the global economy, so it's incredibly common for any business to have some sort of connection to the country. But right-wingers have been rabid in pushing conspiratorial rhetoric and accusations that such connections represent some nefarious national security threat. And that could come back to bite them at the polls this fall.
Moreno isn’t the only one being taken to task for his hypocrisy. He’s one of multiple wealthy Senate candidates backed by Republicans who, despite the party’s vehement anti-China rhetoric, has made a killing doing business with the country.
As David Corn reported for Mother Jones, Florida Sen. Rick Scott has demanded that the United States “stop buying [Chinese] stuff” and “stop investing in China,” and he’s explained his stance by saying “you don’t do business with your enemies.”
But Corn’s post laid out Scott’s history of promoting Chinese investment in Florida, as well as his extensive personal business ties to China, which have enabled him to net himself and his family millions of dollars. (Scott is the richest member of Congress.) His Democratic opponent has sought to capitalize on Scott's apparent China hypocrisy. Scott told Mother Jones that "he’ll be happy to put his record up against the China-loving Biden admin and the Democrats who are all pushing Biden’s pro-China agenda," but did not address any of the outlet's reporting on his investments.
Meanwhile, in Pennsylvania, GOP Senate candidate and multimillionaire Dave McCormick, who has embraced hawkish anti-China rhetoric as well, has been exposed for previously leading an investment firm that plunged millions of dollars into companies that developed military equipment for China. For years now, news outlets have reported on McCormick's former business, Bridgewater Associates, and its extensive investments in China. But its holdings in producers of Chinese military equipment got more attention last week, thanks to a report from Bloomberg. McCormick told Bloomberg that the company he led was only acting within the government’s parameters. “The private sector follows the government’s lead,” he said, “and in the case of Bridgewater, once the government issued its executive orders [on sanctions], Bridgewater complied with all its terms.”
Donald Trump, a former McCormick critic who just endorsed the candidate last week, has been quoted as saying McCormick’s Chinese business investments show he’s aligned with “special interests and globalists.”
These are the supposedly stellar candidates Republicans are promoting to voters. Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida are all states where the GOP is working hard as it tries to retake the Senate this fall. Republicans haven’t helped their cause by backing candidates who oppose Chinese interests — except where they coincide with their own.