The United States and its allies prevailed in World War II in large measure because of the strength of American industry and manufacturing. The nation’s economic power, which includes its capacity to innovate, was also indispensable in winning the Cold War. Today, as U.S. competition with China enters a more dangerous phase, American businesses are once again being called to put patriotism ahead of profits.
On Jan. 28, Rep. John Moolenaar (R-MI), chairman of the House Select Committee on China, sent a sternly worded letter to the Ford Motor Company CEO Jim Farley. The congressman questioned Ford’s plans to “repurpose its existing U.S. battery manufacturing facilities to produce lithium iron phosphate cells and grid-scale energy storage systems,” which “would leverage technical know-how licensed from Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Limited, a Department of War-designated Chinese military company.”
Moolenaar noted that Ford might, if it proceeds along this line, violate laws prohibiting tax credits going toward “licensing arrangements with prohibited foreign entities.” The chairman asked another important question: Is Ford partnering with BYD, a Chinese auto company? Doing so, Moolenaar warned, would “diminish Ford’s status as an iconic American company.”
Ford “should work with our nation’s allies, not our adversaries,” he said, and he is right.
Too many American companies have propped up and nurtured the Chinese Communist Party. China’s appeal is obvious. Beijing promises profits and offers access to vast, untapped markets, which are generally illusory. The U.S. has coveted access to the Far East almost since its birth, 250 years ago. The CCP knows how to sing a siren song and lure American businesses, but in being lured, those businesses can endanger national security.
The CCP has for decades used promises of untold riches to entice Western businesses. More often than not, profits are short-lived. The CCP does not want independent businesses operating on its soil. It wants to steal their technology and intellectual property. China saves untold billions of dollars by not investing in research and development, letting other countries do the work for them, and pilfering the know-how once it is usable.
This may give the U.S. a long-term advantage, as China is not as innovative on its own as it might be. Innovation does not thrive in totalitarian states, and communist China is no exception. Ingenuity and independence of thought have made America a world leader in the modern economy. But China stealing what it cannot create can hardly be accounted a plus overall. It seeks to wield American innovation against the U.S., as it fashions the greatest police state the world has ever known.
In their recent book, The Great Heist, former Defense Intelligence Agency officials David R. Shedd and Andrew Badger note that U.S. government estimates put the annual cost of intellectual property theft at between $225 and $600 billion. The losses are not intangible and abstract. As Shedd and Badger note, “Their loss undermines the very military advantage that has underwritten decades of global stability and American primacy.”
INVESTIGATE THE MINNESOTA SHOOTINGS
Ford is far from the only U.S. company to put undue faith in Beijing. Unfortunately, there is a long list, and the U.S. government is a culprit, too. For example, a December 2025 report by the House Select Committee on China found that the CPP is using Energy Department intellectual property. The investigation discovered a “pervasive and deeply troubling pattern of U.S. taxpayer-funded research being conducted in collaboration with Chinese entities that are directly tied to China’s defense research and industrial base–many of which appear on U.S. government national security entity lists.”
America is practically giving away its hard-won advantages. That’s a recipe for disaster and defeat for the U.S. and its allies. It must be stopped.