China Hawks Target DOJ, PNTR, Capital Gains and More

The Protecting American Industry and Labor from International Trade Crimes Act:

• Establishes a new task force or similar structure within the DOJ’s Criminal Division to investigate and prosecute trade-related crimes.
• Enhances nationwide responses to trade-related offenses by providing training and technical assistance to other federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies, expanding investigations and prosecutions, and allowing for parallel criminal and civil enforcement actions.
• Requires the Attorney General to submit an annual report to Congress assessing the DOJ’s efforts, statistics on trade-related crimes, and fund utilization.

Click HERE to read bill text.

Rubio & Moolenaar Target Investment in PRC

House and Senate unveiled legislation yesterday aimed at preventing the US tax code from rewarding investments in China.

The bill would encourage divestment from Chinese securities by removing the beneficial capital gains tax rate for these investments.

Chinese investments would be taxed instead at the highest income rate. This increased rate would only apply to financial gains that accrue in the future, not gains that have already accrued. Companies and individuals would have six months to divest after passage of the bill, and they would be given the ability to spread tax payments over three years.

“For too long, Americans investing in China’s military-industrial complex have been given unfair tax breaks that allow them to profit from funding our adversary,” Rep. Moolenaar said.

“That’s wrong and Senator Rubio and I are introducing this legislation to put a stop to this special treatment. Our nation’s tax code should be incentivizing investment in the United States, not collaboration with the CCP.”

The lawmakers argued that many Wall Street financial firms choose to invest in China, pouring hundreds of billions of dollars into enterprises that maintain China’s military, rely on slave labor and violate trade rules to dismantle US businesses and jobs.

Text of the Patriotic Investment Act can be found [Here]

Three Senate China hawks introduced legislation yesterday to end China’s Permanent Normal Trade Relations status.

The bill also would phase in higher tariffs – up to 100 percent – on Chinese products. The bill’s co-sponsors include Sens. Tom Cotton (R-Ark), Marco Rubio (R-Fla) and Josh Hawley (R-Mo).

“China’s Permanent Normal Trade Relations status has enriched the Chinese Communist Party while costing the United States millions of jobs,” Sen. Cotton said. “This comprehensive repeal of China’s PNTR status and reform of the US-China trade relationship will protect American workers, enhance our national security, and end the Chinese Communists’ leverage over our economy.”

The bill would:

• End PNTR for China.

• Phase-in tariffs for Chinese products over five years, including 100 percent tariffs for goods determined to be important to national security.

•  Empower the President to create supplementary quotas and tariffs to phase out Chinese imports and to institute overriding bans on specific Chinese goods.
• End de minimis treatment for covered nations – including China – and require customs brokers for other de minimis shipments.

The revenue raised from the tariffs would go towards farmers and manufacturers injured by potential Chinese retaliation, the purchase of key munitions important to a Pacific conflict and paying down the debt.

Text of The Neither Permanent Nor Normal Trade Relations Act may be found here.

Call for Cyber Task Force 

The Strengthening Cyber Resilience Against State-Sponsored Threats Act will establish an interagency task force led by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to address the cybersecurity threats posed by state-sponsored cyber actors associated with the People’s Republic of China 

Additionally, the bill requires that the task force provide a classified report and briefing to Congress annually for five years on its findings, conclusions, and recommendations relating to malicious CCP cyber activity.

Read a copy of the legislation HERE

Call for Ban on Chinese Displays

Citing "the growing threat to U.S. economic and national security posed by Chinese state-subsidized LCD (liquid crystal display) and OLED (organic light emitting diode) companies, BOE Technology Group and Tianma Microelectronics Co.," Mr. Moolenaar wrote Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin asking that the firms be placed on the DoD 1260h blacklist as Chinese military companies

View Moolenaar’s letter to Secretary Austin HERE