U.S. Rep. John Moolenaar (R-MI) is Chairman of the House Select Committee on Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party, and a member of the House Committee on Appropriations. This transcript has been edited for length and clarity.
Federal Newswire: How were you chosen to become a member of the House China Select Committee?
John Moolenaar: I can remember clearly at one of our conference meetings, Speaker McCarthy saying the two things that keep him up at night are our national debt, and the rise of China. I filed that away, because both of those issues are very important, but sometimes don't receive the same urgent attention that other issues in Congress do. I thought, if I could be involved in both of those areas, that would be something I could dedicate myself to and hopefully move the ball forward. On the issue of China, I kind of filed it away in the back of my mind. It wasn't until he decided to set up the Select Committee that I thought there might be an opportunity to serve.
Federal Newswire: With the change in leadership at the committee, what are your priorities?
John Moolenaar: Well, first, it's been really a pleasure to see the member engagement. Both sides of the aisle have [committed] leadership. Hakeem Jeffries has been a constant supporter of this effort. Speaker Johnson has been very engaged and supportive also. The members on the committee are very serious-minded. You don't have a lot of effort to score political points. You have people asking very good questions on the changing nature of this relationship with China, and how U.S. policy should address this. It's really been a pleasure to see this. My goal on the committee is to continue to build on the excellent work that Mike Gallagher and the team started. It's been very bipartisan, very meaningful across the spectrum of a variety of different issues.
Federal Newswire: Two big priorities the committee has focused on are fentanyl and economic strategy. What are your stances on these topics and what other priorities do you have for the committee?
John Moolenaar: [Fentanyl] is a tragedy that has affected many families in the United States–over 100,000 deaths last year from fentanyl poisoning. There's always been a suspicion that China had a role in this. You always want to hope for the best when you think, “Well, maybe they have organized crime and the authorities just aren't able to keep up with it and track it.” Then you realize, well, China's a surveillance state. They pretty much know everything that's going on. But the groundbreaking report our committee presented on the evidence shows China…offering tax rebates to chemical companies to manufacture and export the chemical precursors for fentanyl. Not the fentanyl that's used in hospitals for medical purposes, but the fentanyl that's used to poison people. We want to continue to dig deeper to understand the financial and trafficking relationships between China and Mexico, and then how we can prevent this from continuing. But it's a horrific situation. Fortunately, we now have evidence of China's involvement, and they're complicit in this. We need to take action on it going forward.
Federal Newswire: How do we hold China accountable?
John Moolenaar: This is a very recent report. What we realize is President Biden met with President Xi, I think it was back in November, and talked about fentanyl. The message you got there from President Xi [was], “America has a drug problem, and we'll try and help every way we can.” That's very different from the reality of their involvement. We're going to form some working groups so that we can answer your question. On the economic issues, there were over 150 bipartisan recommendations in our economic report. When you think of how rare it is to get any kind of bipartisanship on 3-5 different recommendations in most areas, to get 150, to me that is really positive. Of course, there will be differences in policy recommendations, but I agree that these are issues that need to be addressed. Most of us believe in free and fair trade. When someone is abusing that and it's no longer a normal trading relationship, you have to ask, “What is the appropriate relationship given someone cheating on the relationship?”
Federal Newswire: What is your confidence level that this idea can be implemented moving forward?
John Moolenaar: Our committee can illuminate the issues that are long term in nature. Because it's a select committee, we can have a focus that goes across many different authorizing committees. For example, we have Reps. Blaylock and Barr, two leaders on the Financial Services Committee on our select committee who are knowledgeable about the CFIUS process and some of these issues where Treasury is involved. Rob Whitman has a very strategic understanding of critical minerals. Each of these different members is bringing their committee experience to this committee to shine a spotlight on where we're vulnerable and the supply chain, where we're increasing our dependance on China rather than decreasing it. My goal is for the committee to be a force multiplier. Sometimes in Congress, committees of jurisdiction can be threatened by other committees. In this case, my hope is that every committee of jurisdiction would be working with us to say, “Okay, you have the focus on China, thanks for the help distilling some of these issues.”
Federal Newswire: Do you believe we should have a policy of “Reciprocity” with China?
John Moolenaar: Well, most of us believe in free and fair trade, but it's free trade among free nations. When that gets distorted, it makes it very hard to say, “Let's just have free trade,” because we know that China has been stealing our intellectual property. We know that it's been co-opting businesses. The CCP has been very aggressive in transnational repression, intimidating people on our soil. It's a different kind of relationship. For the last several decades, the hope was that China would become more open, more freedom loving, more democratic. Under Xi Jinping, they've gone exactly the opposite direction. We had a hearing yesterday on Hong Kong with some of the people who have been persecuted there. I can remember thinking that maybe the Hong Kong story was going to be what the rest of China might look like in the future, this thriving place of freedom, international centers of commerce and finance, and places where people wanted to visit and have cultural exchanges. It's actually gone just the opposite. We need an authentic relationship with China. I think a lot of the expectations and hopes have not borne out. We just need to be very clear eyed about what China's ambitions are.
Federal Newswire: Is the select committee looking into Chinese collaboration with drug cartels?
John Moolenaar: One of the things that's been really eye opening is after the report that we did on the fentanyl, I sat down with Reps. Dan Crenshaw and Jake Ackerman. Jake is a Democrat from Massachusetts, Dan Crenshaw is a former Navy Seal from Texas. Both of them are involved with looking at the cartels, looking at what's happening there at our southern border, and the impact on the United States. I think this was the first time we'd really had the opportunity to talk about China's role in this. We learned that they're actually supplying the equipment to make the pills that so many people are being poisoned by. But when you realize you're dealing with these cartels, who keep their strings and their hands involved in the lives of these people who are vulnerable, when their people are abused coming across the southern border, when families are threatened and intimidated, and then those relationships continue in this country, you can see the danger that that presents. Our goal would be to develop a working group around that issue. Then whoever the next administration is, to try and work across agencies to collaborate in addressing this problem. Because…it's becoming a more and more threatening problem in our homeland, even though you're thinking about foreign entities and it seems far away, but as people have said, “Every state is a border state now.”
Federal Newswire: Where can people go to keep up with the work you and the committee are doing?
John Moolenaar: www.moolenaarr.house.gov. The committee website is, www.selectcommitteeontheCCP.house.gov. Our Twitter is @CommitteeonCCP. We have a newsletter people can sign up for. The China Desk podcast is hosted by Steve Yates, a former president of Radio Free Asia and White House national security advisor. I think it's really important we have the freedom in this country to have a dialogue and exchange ideas, and I think we're better for it.
