Presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy slammed plans for Gotion’s electric vehicle lithium battery plants in Illinois and Michigan at a Wednesday rally near the Michigan proposed site. Gotion, which is Chinese owned, is set to receive about $8 billion in taxpayer subsidies for its Manteno plant, which will cost only $2 billion to build, and the company has clear ties to the Chinese Communist Party.
“The top objective of the next U.S. president has to be to declare independence from communist China. That is the Declaration of Independence of our century. We cannot depend on our enemy, for our modern way of life and the shoes on our feet to the phones in our pockets,” he said.
Gotion’s Michigan plans are nearly identical to its plans for Manteno, Illinois. “We’re not going to let it happen [in Illinois] just like we’re not going to let it happen here,” Ramaswamy said to the Michigan crowd.
Those facts have ignited a firestorm of controversy in Michigan and Manteno. I can attest to the deep anger of Manteno opponents, which was on full display at a Monday press conference and rally there. Opponents are livid, and the town seems overwhelmingly opposed. The plant is to be manned by American workers, but at least some Chinese nationals from Gotion undoubtedly will be there to oversee construction and management, and they will surely see the intense opposition to their project.
Illinois Gotion opponents have a new website here.
The national press is at least beginning to focus on the controversy. Reuters, News Nation and Fox have covered it, as did the New York Times twice this month. The Michigan press has multiple stories almost daily on the controversy there. Major Illinois media, however, have almost entirely blacked out the story, the only exceptions being outrageously distorted columns by Greg Hinz and Rich Miller, and a retort to the Hinz column by a former U.S. ambassador opposed to the Gotion projects.
Gotion supporters are dismissing criticism as a new form of McCarthyism, xenophobia or Red Scare, which is absurd because the Biden Administration and top Democrats have become among the most hawkish in calling for more tighter restrictions on Chinese business activity in the U.S.
The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that China is becoming a “no-go” zone for American businessmen because they fear they will be imprisoned there. Yet America is proceeding merrily along with subsidies for Chinese E.V. and battery investments in the U.S. – subsidies that far exceed project costs.
It’s not just Gotion projects getting those fat, federal subsidies. For example, Panasonic is poised to get as much as $6.8 billion for a Kansas E.V. battery plant that will cost just $4 billion. Many such projects are underway that are similarly subsidized.
That’s rank stupidity.
Among other consequences, a frenzy of new E.V. batter factories have been announced, which will likely lead to a battery glut.
Environmental issues are still emerging for Gotion and other battery projects, which has made the opposition in Michigan bipartisan. The same environmental questions should be asked here in Illinois:
- Does Manteno really have capacity to deliver 500,000 gallons of water per day, which is what the Michigan project is expected to consume?
- Where will the wastewater go and what will be in it?
- Will the local fire department be prepared for special firefighting needed for particularly hot lithium fires and noxious fumes that are released?
- Where is all the concern about “ESG investing” (environmental, social and governance) to which Illinois claims to be dedicated? That question was raised this week about the Kansas plant.
Wirepoints is collecting all relevant articles here. The Gotion controversy deepens every day.