Calling out Biden administration climate czar John Kerry for concerning conflicts of interest in China, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., is calling for the unelected bureaucrat not confirmed by Congress to be "fired" by President Joe Biden.
"Nothing is going right for President Biden or our nation lately," Rubio wrote on Fox News on Friday. "Gas prices are surging. Groceries are more expensive. Supply chains are bottlenecked. Divisive Marxist policies are tearing our communities apart. We've been embarrassed on the world stage thanks to Biden's Afghanistan debacle. And now, the president’s top climate adviser is profiting from slave labor.
"The AFL-CIO called 'on the Biden administration to take the commonsense actions.' The first step is to fire John Kerry as climate czar. And then, instead of relying on a genocidal regime that hates America, the Biden administration should focus on building up domestic production to create good jobs in America.
"Biden needs to decide where he stands and who he is fighting for. Right now, his silence is deafening, and it is giving cover to the Marxists in both America and in China. Meanwhile, American workers and families continue to suffer."
Rubio's missive called out Kerry's unwillingness to criticize China's use of slave labor, his opposing of Rubio's Uyghur Forced Labor Act, and his having "convinced President Joe Biden to stay silent on the bill."
"According to a new report, Kerry and his wife have at least $1 million invested in a Chinese investment group called Hillhouse China Value Fund L.P.," Rubio began.
"That fact alone raises serious questions as to whether Kerry can negotiate in good faith with Beijing on climate change but it gets worse. According to the report, Hillhouse is a 'top shareholder' in a Chinese technology company called YITU Technology, which was blacklisted by the Trump administration in 2019 for being complicit in the surveillance, detention, and repression of Uyghurs and others.
"In other words, Kerry appears to be profiting from slave labor."
These revelations have Rubio calling for Kerry's ouster as climate czar, a special envoy position created by Biden that seats Kerry on the bloating National Security Council that former President Donald Trump had attempted to downsize for its unelected sway over the White House under the guise of "national security" concerns.
"President Biden now has a choice: stand by the man profiting from slave labor or fire him," Rubio wrote.
"It should be an easy choice, but the Biden administration and some Democrats are so desperate for a climate deal with the Chinese Communist Party that they are willing to ignore the regime's use of slave labor."
Rubio pointed to the myriad U.S. companies that mass produce cheap products in China to sell them worldwide. These are the same companies fighting against his Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, along with Kerry and other Biden administration officials.
"This is how they do business — and in their view, business is always more important than ending literal slavery or advancing U.S. national interests," Rubio wrote.
"Biden needs to decide where he stands and who he is fighting for. Right now, his silence is deafening, and it is giving cover to the Marxists in both America and in China.
"But this is not a partisan issue, or at least it shouldn't be."
The Biden-supporting AFL-CIO, the largest group of unions, appears to be finding fault in their president, Rubio noted, with the group writing, "corporations should not be allowed to profit from this egregious exploitation, and working people in the United States must never be subject to competition with companies that use forced labor as part of their production model."
"The AFL-CIO also rejected the 'false choices between protecting our common future and protecting the human rights of workers wherever we may be,'" Rubio wrote. "That is a line aimed squarely at John Kerry, who said life is 'full of tough choices' when asked why he was focused only on climate.
"Kerry is not alone, though. Some Senate Democrats are lobbying to remove sanctions that are in place on certain solar components coming directly or indirectly from China. As the AFL-CIO noted, slave labor 'is known to pervade the global solar energy industry' in China."
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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