McCready outsourced jobs to China, endangered N.C.’s power grid
Dan McCready talks a big game about “getting tough on China” and criticized policies that “allowed China to clobber American solar panel makers,” but an investigation out this morning reveals that the solar farms McCready has made so central to his campaign … were mostly outsourced from China.
The investigation also shows that McCready’s company opened America’s energy infrastructure to “major national security threats,” by exclusively using cheap Chinese inverters from Huawei – which 11 U.S. Senators, Republican and Democrat alike, have asked to ban over grave concerns to national security.
“Dan McCready loves to talk about creating jobs in America, but records show his own businesses profited handily off shipping jobs to China,” said CLF Spokesman Calvin Moore. “Even worse, McCready was so eager to pad his bottom line, he was willing put America’s national security at risk just to save a few bucks. If Dan McCready can’t be trusted to stand up to China in business, how can North Carolinians trust him to stand up to China in Congress?”
In case you missed it…
North Carolina Dem candidate vows to ‘get tough’ with China – despite investing in company that outsourced to China
Lukas Mikelionis
Fox News
May 28, 2019
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/north-carolina-democrat-dan-mccready-china-outsource
A Democratic Congressional candidate trying to win a seat in September’s special election has promised to “get tough with China,” even as he invested in a solar power company that outsourced production to China and imported devices from a Chinese company deemed a national security risk.
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The company has heavily invested in utility-scale solar farms in North Carolina and nearly 40 projects that produce about 10 percent of the state’s solar power. Most of the investment went to Strata Solar, the State’s largest solar company, according to Charlotte Business Journal.
McCready attempted to appear as a moderate Democrat and wooed Republican voters by agreeing to President Trump’s tough trade policies, particularly when it came to China.
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Yet Strata Solar has been working with Huawei, the embattled Chinese technology company, since at least 2016 despite repeated warnings that the company may pose a national security risk to the U.S.
The North Carolina solar power company announced the purchase of Huawei string inverters for “several of its utility-scale power plant projects in the United States” and later entered into an agreement with the Chinese company to exclusively use the string inverters for the developments.
“As big as Huawei is, it gave us a warm, fuzzy feeling about their customer-centricity … and then add to that the size of Huawei as an entity and an interest – It made us feel comfortable that we had value alignment with the people that we are working with,” Strata Solar’s Mike Belikoff told a technology magazine in an issue sponsored by Huawei.
The Trump administration recently added Huawei to a trade blacklist that makes it illegal for U.S. companies to work with the company. A number of U.S. senators also specifically asked the Department of Homeland Security and Department of Energy to ban Huawei string inverters over national security risks to the U.S. power grid.
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Import records show also show that Strata Solar also repeatedly purchased solar panels and other parts from several other Chinese corporations for their solar developments.
Publicly available records show at least 12 shipments for solar panels purchased from Shanghai BYD Co., Ltd, a $22.7 billion Chinese corporation. The company boasted about the deal with the American company, saying in 2013 that their solar panels will represent “over a third of Strata’s scheduled construction work for 2014.”