Chinese-Owned Companies Took Hundreds of Millions in Bailout Money Meant for Small U.S. Businesses | Eastern North Carolina Now

Publisher's note: This post appears here courtesy of the The Daily Wire, and written by Ryan Saavedra.

    Chinese-0wned companies took hundreds of millions of dollars from the $660 billion Paycheck Protection Program that was designed to be a lifeline for small businesses in the United States that were struggling because of the coronavirus pandemic.

    "According to a review of publicly available loan data by the strategy consulting firm Horizon Advisory, $192 million to $419 million has gone to more than 125 companies that Chinese entities own or invest in," The New York Times reported. "Many of the loans were quite sizable; at least 32 Chinese companies received loans worth more than $1 million, with those totaling as much as $180 million."

    "The report acknowledges that the participation of these companies in the lending program most likely saved an unspecified number of jobs based in the United States, but it also suggests that many of the businesses probably had access to other forms of capital from public or private markets to support their American operations," NYT continued. "The Treasury Department has estimated that the overall program has kept 50 million workers employed in the United States."

    The Times added that a new provision of the bill introduced by Senate Republicans last week would ban businesses that "are partially owned by Chinese companies or that have a Chinese resident on the board of directors" from receiving any money in the next potential round of loans.

    Emily de La Bruyère and Nathan Picarsic, the co-founders of Horizon Advisory, warned "without appropriate policy guardrails" that "U.S. tax dollars intended for relief, recovery and growth of the U.S. economy" risk going to America's top foreign competitors, "namely China."

    The Trump administration has always been hawkish toward China but the coronavirus pandemic, compounded with China's lies and withholding of critical information, has significantly increased the administration's aggressive stances toward the communist nation.

    Attorney General William Barr warned in a recent speech that China was trying to build "a socialism that is superior to capitalism" and wants to replace "the American dream with the Chinese solution."

    "China is no longer hiding its strength, nor biding its time. From the perspective of its communist rulers, China's time has arrived," Barr said. "The People's Republic of China is now engaged in an economic Blitzkrieg, an aggressive orchestrated whole of government, indeed whole of society, campaign to seize the commanding heights of the global economy and to surpass the United States as the world's preeminent technological superpower."

    Barr noted that the China "pursues its ambitions through the nefarious and even illegal conduct, including industrial espionage, theft, extortion, cyber attacks, and malign influence activities."

    Tensions between the two nations have continued to increase on a variety of fronts in recent weeks on issues ranging from Hong Kong to a consulate in Houston that was forced to close because it was essentially a base of operations that the Chinese were using to conduct spying operations in the U.S.