The New York Young Republican Club supports the Transit Infrastructure Vehicle Security Act.
China is aiming to take over U.S. transit rail and electric bus manufacturing as part of its “Made in China 2025” plan. The Chinese state-owned company China Railway Rolling Stock Corp. (CRRC) already has nabbed contracts to build transit rail in cities like Boston, Philadelphia and Los Angeles. Meanwhile, the state-controlled electric bus maker Build Your Dreams (BYD) landed the winning bid to build buses for other cities.
But these companies aren’t playing fair. China’s government heavily subsidizes them, allowing them to severely underbid competitors, sometimes by as much as hundreds of millions of dollars. That’s because China’s goal isn’t to make money on individual contracts, as a company operating in a fair market would. Rather, the goal is to eventually monopolize the entire U.S. transit system! That’s already happened in Australia, where freight rail is now monopolized by CRRC.
There are 90,000 good-paying jobs up and down the U.S. transit supply chain that are now at risk because of China’s behavior, and hundreds of thousands more in freight rail and our auto supply chain, markets that are China’s ultimate goal. But there also are major national security implications, as experts warn China could use facial-recognition technology or other means to spy on Americans. This is especially concerning, given that CRRC is now aiming to land a contract to build Metro rail cars for WMATA in Washington, D.C. Plus, giving China access to these essential pieces of our transit also makes us vulnerable to being hacked and other national security risks. The Defense Department, for example, often uses freight rail to transport sensitive equipment.
America’s tax dollars fund these transit systems, and they should not be used to further Made in China 2025 at the expense of American workers across our great country.