Trump-endorsed House candidate sounds alarm on China’s growing influence in battleground state

China’s growing influence in Michigan has brewed into a “huge issue of concern” for voters in the key battleground state, according to a Trump-backed House candidate sounding the alarm on “failed Democratic” policies in the Great Lakes State. 

“This is a huge issue of concern both from national security and economic security standpoint,” Republican House candidate to represent Michigan’s Tom Barrett told Fox News Digital in a Zoom interview this week. “Here in Michigan, the Democrats are giving nearly $200 million of state tax money to a Chinese-backed, Communist Party affiliated company that’s going to come to Michigan to build a battery plant. They’ve already purchased a bunch of rural farmland to go out and build a Chinese Communist Party-backed battery plant in Michigan, not far from a military installation where I trained for countless hours during my career in the Army.”

Barrett is an Army veteran who previously served in Michigan’s state House and state Senate before launching his race to represent the 7th District in the U.S. House. Barrett earned Trump’s “complete and total endorsement” for the House seat earlier this year, and spoke to Fox News Digital about the top issues he’s highlighting from the campaign trail, including spiraling inflation, border policies, fentanyl overdose deaths, as well as China’s growing influence in the state. 

“While families are struggling in Michigan to make ends meet and just buy groceries, pay for their home heating costs, our state government, backed by my opponent, is sending nearly $200 million of their state tax money to a Chinese communist company just so they can come here and spy on us. This is rotten to the core,” Barrett said. 

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Republican Michigan state Sen. Tom Barrett, his party’s nominee for Congress in Michigan’s 7th Congressional District, speaks to supporters on the campaign trail. (Tom Barrett For Congress)

In 2022, Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer announced Gotion, a China-based manufacturer, would construct a $2.4 billion electric vehicle battery plant in a rural area of the state near Big Rapids. The announcement was met with outrage from residents, including local leaders working to reverse a water supply agreement that would have crippled the plant’s construction. Gotion sued the township, Green Charter, and notched a legal victory last month when a federal judge upheld a preliminary injunction allowing construction to continue. 

Barrett’s competitor this cycle, Curtis Hertel, worked as Whitmer’s director of legislative affairs from 2015 to 2023, before serving in the state Senate. 

“My opponent signed a nondisclosure agreement to negotiate sending this money to this Chinese company while he was a member of the state Senate and then later went to work as Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s chief lobbyist. He’s listed in the Foreign Agents Registries Act filings with having secret conversations with this Chinese company about maneuvering through the legislature to get their funding approved,” Barrett said of his competitor and Democrats in the state. 

Hertell’s campaign and Whitmer’s office did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request for contact. 

Barrett pointed to remarks from former Obama administration CIA director Leon Panetta, who warned earlier this year that China would likely use the battery plant for espionage purposes. 

“I don’t think there’s any question that they’re going to take advantage of that situation,” Panetta warned in January when asked about the plant during a House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party hearing. “And I think we have to be very vigilant about what the hell is going on. That’s just the way they operate. They’ll establish a manufacturing unit, they’ll establish whatever they can, and then they will use that for their own intelligence purposes. They will use that for their own economic purposes.”

Barrett said the deal is not only a national security threat, but also risks American jobs. 

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“It is all in the pursuit of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’s electric vehicle mandate that will systematically replace and eliminate existing manufacturing jobs in Michigan that make up the very fabric of our economy here. So we have a Chinese company threatening with national security concerns to replace American jobs in traditional manufacturing with electric vehicle mandates that are borne by the Biden administration. So this has so many problems. It’s an absolutely horrible deal,” he said. 

Former State Senator Tom Barrett, a Republican from Michigan and US Republican House candidate, speaking at a primary election night party in August 2024.  (Nic Antaya/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

“Michiganders are stepping up. They’re aware of this. It is terribly unpopular here. And we need to take this fight to the ballot box to make sure that we don’t let this go forward.”

Trump joined farmers during a panel earlier this week in another battleground state, Pennsylvania, where they discussed China’s recent purchases of American farmland and again enforcing a trade deal against China that benefits American farmers. 

“My first call, I’m going to call up President Xi. I’m going to say, ‘You have to honor the deal you made. We made a deal. You’d buy $50 billion worth of American farm product.’ And I guarantee you he will buy it. 100% he will buy it,” Trump said Monday during a campaign event in Smithton, Pennsylvania. 

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Trump struck a trade deal with China in 2020 that included Beijing’s commitment to halt intellectual property theft, refrain from currency manipulation, cooperate in financial services and purchase an additional $200 billion of U.S. products over two years, including up to $50 billion of U.S. agriculture. 

“Second thing I’m going to do is, I’m going to say you have to give the death penalty to your fentanyl dealers who are sending fentanyl. You know, in China, they give the death penalty. They don’t have a drug problem because they give the death penalty,” Trump said. 

Republican presidential nominee, former U.S. President Donald Trump, looks on during a campaign stop to address Pennsylvanians who are concerned about the threat of Communist China to U.S. agriculture at the Smith Family Farm September 23, 2024 in Smithton, Pennsylvania.  (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

Fentanyl and overdose deaths are again one of the top concerns for Americans this election cycle, with Trump tying the fatal drug to the influx of illegal immigrants who have poured over the southern border under the Biden-Harris administration. 

Barrett said his area and district are among the communities across the nation that have been rocked by the influx of the synthetic opioid from across the border. 

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“Every single community in America, in every town, not just in the district where I’m running, but every town in America has been touched and affected and devastated by the outcomes of illegal immigration and lax border policies that have flooded every community with fentanyl. And now the leading cause of death of Americans my age is fentanyl overdose. It’s a crippling and devastating tragedy. And we have to fix the problem,” he said. 

“We have to secure our border with more structures. We have to reinstate the remain in Mexico policy. We can’t allow the exploitation of asylum claims to overwhelm our social welfare system, to overwhelm our border security. We need to put Border Patrol agents on the border instead of processing asylum claims all day as they’re doing right now. And we need to get back to two policies that deter illegal border crossing,” he continued. 

Barrett is an Army veteran who signed his contract over the Christmas break of his senior year in high school. He spent 22 years in the Army, serving in the Iraq War, Guantanamo Bay, Kuwait, and at the DMZ separating North and South Korea. 

Republican House candidate and former Army pilot Tom Barrett is seen here in a campaign ad still. (Tom Barrett campaign)

Barrett pointed to his military career amid his calls to secure the border. 

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“I spent a year of my life deployed during Operation Enduring Freedom to Guantanomo Bay, Cuba, where there were terrorists that we were securing in that facility. And they told us straight to our face, that they wanted to come to America and kill Americans. I believe them. We need to keep them out of our country. We’ve had hundreds on the terror watch list that we already know have crossed into this country just during this administration. We need to remove them and we need to make sure that we don’t allow any further terrorists into our country,” he said. 

Barrett is in the lead in his race against Hertell, but underscored he’s not taking anything for granted while 

“I think President Trump is very well poised to win Michigan. We know this is going to be a very close race and absolutely nothing we can take for granted. The seventh Congressional District in Michigan, where I’m running, is also highly competitive. And we also have a very competitive United States Senate race in Michigan,” he said. 

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“This really is going to shape the direction of our country. And we can go down the same failed path we’ve been on already with the high cost of living and groceries that are unaffordable for families, and mortgage rates that don’t allow a young couple to begin their own family. Or we can turn the corner. Secure our border. Get our costs of living under control, get crime under control, put our foreign adversaries back in check where they belong, and really forge a new path for America.”

Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.