Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) is questioning the Pentagon’s plan to buy solar panels, emphasizing they must not be made in communist China, according to Fox News.
Youngkin has written a letter to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin regarding the matter surrounding the possible use of $104 million in taxpayer money, the outlet reported Monday.
NEW: @GovernorVA @GlennYoungkin penned a letter to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to question the wisdom of the Pentagon’s plan to use $104 million in taxpayer funds to add solar panels from the Chinese Communist Party to the rooftop of the Pentagon. https://t.co/dlz2DM1cXQ
— Christian Martinez (@C_RMartinez) June 10, 2024
The article noted:
The Virginia Republican told Austin that he has “serious concerns” about the plan to secure solar panels to the rooftop of the Pentagon and other military installations, most notably that there has been no “stated requirement that such panels be made in America using American technology.”
“This decision has significant implications for U.S. national security and brings into question whether American taxpayer dollars will be used to purchase solar equipment from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), our greatest economic and geopolitical rival,” reads the letter, which was reviewed by Fox News Digital.
In March 2023 the governor’s administration asked the Fairfax County Public Schools to cut ties to Chinese Communist Party-linked entities.
Breitbart News noted at the time, “Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology (TJ), an elite public high school in Fairfax County, Virginia, has received over one million dollars from Chinese interests in exchange for help developing similar schools in China.”
Alina Ampeh, a student at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Fairfax County, Virginia, speaks to an Associated Press reporter in front of her school on September 11, 2017. (Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP)
In 2021, Breitbart News noted that China’s state-run Global Times claimed that Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities employed by solar panel plants in Xinjiang were working “of their own will” for a competitive salary.
The claim was reported following allegations that the groups were working under slave labor conditions.
Workers install solar panels on the roof of factory buildings at a small and medium-sized enterprises park on July 5, 2022, in Lianyungang, Jiangsu Province of China. (VCG/VCG via Getty)
In August 2023 Breitbart News reported that “The Commerce Department has again found that Chinese solar manufacturers are evading United States tariffs by rerouting their supply chains through four Asian countries.”
“The findings come after President Joe Biden shielded the Chinese companies with a 24-month tariff moratorium,” the article said.