With the onset of the 2022 Beijing Olympic Games and Democrats bringing their America Competes Act to the floor, we wanted to highlight actions Congresswoman Wagner has taken over the past year to hold the Chinese Communist Party accountable.
Top Wagner Actions Holding The CCP Accountable You May Have Missed:
- Congresswoman Wagner voted no on the America Competes Act out of committee. The America Competes Act is full of partisan poison pills that do little to improve American competitiveness and are too generous to the CCP. Some of those poison pills include:
- Authorizing $8 billion for the so-called Green Climate Fund, which is nothing but a slush fund for the CCP.
- Creates new “climate change officers’ in the State Department, which weakens our focus on national security issues.
- Fails to address security assistance, export controls, or US allies that are facing CCP aggression.
- Does not even mention curtailing CCP military modernization.
- Allows research funding to freely flow to colleges and universities that host Confucius institutes, which the US uses to exert influence on college campuses.
- Creates a new immigration program of unlimited green cards for high-skilled foreign nationals – such as “outstanding professors and researchers”, a documented source of Chinese espionage – with no national security safeguards.
- Mentions “corals reefs” more than China.
- Congresswoman Wagner cosponsored the GENOCIDE GAMES Act which would impose global Magnitsky sanctions on International Olympic Committee officials if athletes, fans, or dissepeared, or otherwise deprived of their internationally recognized human rights by the Chinese Communist Party during the Beijing Olympics. You can read more about the GENOCIDE GAMES Act here.
- Last week, Congresswoman Wagner signed onto a letter with other House Republicans urging the Department of State to inform US athletes, “including the ongoing genocide, the suppression of democracy and dissent, and the attendant risks they face in China.” Additionally, the letter also calls on the Department of State to explain what actions the Department of State has taken to keep U.S. athletes safe should they exercise their freedom of speech.
- As FoxNews noted in mid-January, “Rep. Ann Wagner, R-Mo. spearheaded a letter co-signed by 29 of her colleagues sent to NBC CEO Jeff Shell and NBC Olympics President Gary Zenkel over its coverage of the upcoming Olympic Games being hosted next month in Beijing and the likely efforts of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to silence dissidents as the world tunes in to the network.” The letter asks that “in the event that the Olympics proceed as planned, honest and transparent coverage will help the international community defend persecuted groups like Uyghurs, Tibetans, Hong Kong residents, Falun Gong practitioners, Christians, and human rights advocates.” Days later, NBC News announced that they would acknowledge the “geopolitical context” of the Beijing Games.
- In October of 2021, Congresswoman Wagner and her bipartisan colleagues on the House Foreign Affairs Committee released a bill to counter China’s economic coercion. This bill, the Countering China Economic Coercion Act, would establish a interagency task force to respond to coercion from the People’s Republic of China. The bill would require the aforementioned task force to submit a report on its findings “including an analysis of the tools the Chinese government uses to conduct economic coercion, and a list of recommendations on how the U.S. should push back.” You can read more about the Countering China Economic Coercion Act here.
- Congresswoman Wagner joined Maria Bartolomo in July to discuss the Congresswoman’s Compensation for Americans Act . As we noted last week, The Compensation for Americans Act would force China and the Chinese Communist Party to pay for their corrupt and unethical actions surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic. The legislation would first freeze Chinese assets in the United States to force them to come to the bargaining table and then would establish a fund to compensate America for damages caused by COVID-19, remove China’s “developing nation” status with the World Trade Organization and end China’s eligibility for World Bank development loans, and would instruct the President to seek a bilateral agreement on compensation with China. Democrats in Congress have blocked the Compensation for Americans Act twice now. The Congresswoman also penned an op-ed in June, Rep. Ann Wagner: COVID and China — I wanted to hold China accountable. Dems blocked my plan. I’m trying again
Watch the video above here
- In July of 2021, Congresswoman Wagner highlighted how China’s has been attempting to use “vaccine diplomacy” through which it trades access to its COVID vaccines in exchange for expanded influence in these countries. The Congresswoman introduced an amendment to ensure that our US tax dollars will not be used to purchase these faulty vaccines so that the United States can continue to counter China’s influence.
Watch the video above here
Other Wagner actions You May Have Missed:
- Congresswoman Wagner introduced the EARN IT Act. The EARN IT (Eliminating Abusive Rampant Neglect of Interactive Technologies) Act removes Section 230 protections against Federal civil and State civil and criminal liability for websites that advertise, promote, present, distribute, or solicit child sexual abuse material (CSAM). You can read more about the EARN IT Act here.
- Congresswoman Wagner co-sponsored Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar’s Blockchain Solutions for Small Business Act, which would seek to improve the Small Business Administration’s operational efficiency by using blockchain technology. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the SBA was given an increased role to serve small businesses across the country. Since then, it has become clear that the Agency’s system is outdated and in need of operational improvements. To address the Agency’s needs, this bill studies how to best integrate blockchain technology into the SBA to maximize their efficiency and better serve small business owners across the country. You can read more about the bill here.
- The 2017 Trump Tax cuts were a major boon to our economy. According the a Wall Street Journal op-ed, with the Trump Tax cuts, “real wages for the lowest 10% of Americans grew by 8% compared with a 5% rise for the top 10% of earners. The wealth of Americans in the bottom 50% grew three times as fast as the wealth of the richest 1%.” That is why Congresswoman Wagner cosponsored a bill to make the Trump Tax cuts permanent for individuals, families, and small businesses.
Other News You May Have Missed:
- House Republican China Task Force Report on the Beijing Olympics
- Washington Examiner: Pelosi warns US Olympians not to speak out against Chinese abuses
- CNN: US oil prices hit $90 a barrel for the first time since 2014
- NYPost: Notes reveal Biden Admin was not prepared for Afghan evacuation before fall of Kabul