Generally the mantra grows exhausting, and the conclusion that flows from it seems to battle with different targets.
Nonetheless, this one appears fairly minimize and dried.
In a 45-second clip posted Sunday to the social media platform X, Republican Rep. Pat Harrigan of North Carolina, who final week launched laws designed to tighten safety on army installations, took viewers on a short-and-spliced video tour of Fort Bragg, North Carolina, the place he recognized 4 retail shops owned by the Chinese Communist Party.
The retail shops in query belong to an organization with which readers may need some familiarity — GNC, which sells nutritional vitamins, protein, dietary supplements, and different health-related merchandise geared towards fitness-conscious clients. The corporate has greater than 4,000 retail places domestically and greater than 2,000 overseas.
In line with the army news-focused web site Task & Purpose, GNC began as a family-owned retailer in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, through the Nice Despair. An organization spokesperson advised the outlet that the Chinese language agency Harbin Pharmaceutical Group bought GNC out of chapter in 2020.
In fact, in a basic sense, the connection between Chinese language companies and the Chinese language Communist authorities appears fairly opaque. On one hand, China’s private sector has grown in current many years. However, state-owned and mixed-ownership companies in China accounted for 67 percent of market capitalization in that nation, which the Communist Occasion has dominated with an iron fist since 1949.
Furthermore, U.S. elected officers have already examined the connection between China and GNC and have discovered trigger for alarm.
In 2020, as an illustration, Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, now Secretary of State below President Donald Trump, requested for a safety assessment of Harbin whereas its buy of GNC remained pending, per The Wall Street Journal. Rubio feared that the acquisition may compromise Individuals’ private knowledge.
“The acquisition of a serious well being and vitamin chain with over 5,200 retail shops in the US and an expansive buyer base presents the chance for state-directed actors to buy this info legally,” Rubio stated on the time.
Thus, Harrigan’s invoice and video undoubtedly struck many nationwide security-conscious officers as merchandise of a authentic trigger for concern.
On April 1, Harrigan launched H.R. 2551, the Navy Set up Retail Safety Act of 2025.
Then, in Sunday’s video, he confirmed viewers the places of 4 GNC shops at Fort Bragg.
“If I’ve something to say about this, and I do, they’re not gonna be right here for lengthy,” Harrigan stated.
The congressman amplified that promise in a corresponding publish.
“The Chinese language Communist Occasion has no enterprise wherever close to our warfighters!” Harrigan wrote.
I went to Fort Bragg, the guts of our Particular Operations Forces, and located not one, not two, not three… however FOUR CCP-owned GNCs working on base.
The Chinese language Communist Occasion has no enterprise wherever close to our warfighters! pic.twitter.com/Q5ZEs3drMg
— Congressman Pat Harrigan (@RepPatHarrigan) April 6, 2025
As of Tuesday morning, the congressman’s video had greater than two million views on X.
In different phrases, the query of Chinese corporations on U.S. army installations attracted nice curiosity. And that included consideration from considered one of Harrigan’s colleagues, Republican Rep. Ben Cline of Virginia.
“It is a MAJOR nationwide safety risk,” Cline wrote as a part of a lengthier publish.
It is a MAJOR nationwide safety risk: GNC, owned by the Chinese language state-run Harbin Prescribed drugs, operates 85 places on U.S. army bases—together with 7 in Virginia. They’re making an attempt to cover their ties to China by failing to reveal possession on https://t.co/6xrcB6svkS. We… https://t.co/gtIr1EPdRH
— Congressman Ben Cline (@RepBenCline) April 7, 2025
In the meantime, GNC spokesman Nick Sero denied that any such risk existed.
“We’re run by a U.S.-based management group and are ruled by strict U.S. safety protocols. Buyer knowledge is protected by third-party controls authorized by the Division of Protection, and no knowledge is shared with or accessible to our dad or mum firm,” Sero advised Process & Goal.
So what ought to readers make of all this?
Effectively, in a basic sense, the endless “nationwide safety” mantra has grown tiresome. Any paranoid or bloodthirsty rogue official can cause endless trouble world wide just by crying “nationwide safety.” These rogues and their allies within the institution media and elsewhere have spent many years priming Individuals for precisely that.
Conversely, we have already got a authentic goal of inviting foreign investors whereas hoping to stave off international affect or infiltration. One welcomes the funding, however no critical Trump supporter likes the concept of rival or hostile foreigners buying American corporations.
Thus, within the case of GNC and Fort Bragg, it could seem that now we have the worst of each worlds. A longtime American-owned firm, just lately bought to China, strikes one as an emblem of the globalist struggle on America’s working class. And its look at U.S. army installations looks like one thing that individuals inquisitive about defending their borders would wish to keep away from.
This text appeared initially on The Western Journal.
