US Senator Marco Rubio has demanded an investigation into a partnership launched by carmaker Ford with a Chinese company and Brazilian mining company Vale, claiming it could “threaten the national security” of the US.
Ford announced on March 30 a deal with Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt and Vale’s Indonesian subsidiary to produce nickel in Indonesia, which would be used to make batteries for electric cars.
According to a statement released by Ford, Huayou senior vice president George Fang said it was “one of the key projects of One Belt, One Road,” the international infrastructure initiative launched by the Chinese government.
Republican Marco Rubio stressed that Ford does not have a majority stake in the project, “leaving the company at the mercy of the Chinese Communist Party.”
This is because it is written into Chinese law that any company must collaborate with the Beijing authorities on national security, added the former candidate for the Republican presidential nomination.
Rubio also recalled that in 2016, the human rights organization Amnesty International accused a subsidiary of Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt of using child and forced labor in mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The senator called on the federal agency in charge of customs to launch an investigation and “immediately impose a ban” on importing goods whose production involved forced labor.
As vice chairman of the US Senate Intelligence Committee, Rubio asked the Federal Trade Commission in July to investigate whether Chinese authorities are accessing US users’ data through the TikTok app.
The senator was also one of the authors of a law passed in 2021 that bans the import of a series of products manufactured in the province of Xinjiang, in northwestern China, as part of the fight against forced labor of the Uighur Muslim minority.
With information from Lusa