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Little Rock, Ark. — Today, Rep. French Hill (AR-02) joined Hugh Hewitt on The Hugh Hewitt Show to discuss the threat to national security presented by China and his bill, H.R. 6399, the Securing America’s Vaccines for Emergencies (SAVE) Act, to use the Defense Production Act (DPA) to ensure the availability of essential medical equipment.

To watch the full interview with Rep. Hill and Hugh Hewitt, click HERE or on the image below. 


Hewitt: What is going on in the Financial Services Committee and very seriously for a moment what are you going to do about the People's Republic of China and their utter lack of transparency?

Hill: I think it’s important to note what powers we have over in the House Financial Services Committee to increase the oversight, increase the scrutiny, increase America’s monitoring of China’s area. The first thing I did this week, when I realized how America was caught at low tide with no bathing suit on the medical supply chain in this country: I proposed legislation to amend the Defense Production Act (DPA) to make the medical supply chain, the pharmaceutical chain, and the medical device supply chain all national security issues, and I asked the president to have a strategy going forward. We don’t want to repeat the mess that we’ve had being dependent on China and other countries for a very narrow group of companies that are producing our critical medical and pharmaceutical supplies.

Hewitt: Now, how is that being received across the aisle because obviously move anything no matter how obviously necessary and this is obviously necessary to anyone - as you said at low tide if you haven’t got a bathing suit, everyone sees your birthday suit and we are in our birthday suit when it comes to pharma and medical devices. What do you think the Democrats on your committee think of your idea?

Hill: Well Hugh, I am working with them. We have, for the five years I’ve been in the House on the Financial Services Committee I have seen a lot of bipartisan support for China oversight. We saw that in CFIUS reforms where we reviewed how we reviewed international transactions for investment in the U.S. We have tightened those up for intellectual property and joint ventures. I have seen it in the Ex-Im Bank where we have compromised with the Democrats to tighten up Ex-Im Bank financing for anything dealing with China and more importantly, World Bank, where we have a bipartisan group that supports China’s graduation from the World Bank as a developing country. We have bipartisan support for transparency for the World Bank financing that the World Bank or IMF won't finance a country until they know how exactly how China has done any kind of sovereign financing for that third-world county putting them potentially in a death trap. So, I would say we have members on both sides of the aisle that want to scrutinize China, and I believe that the same will be true for the medical supply chain.

Hewitt: You know Congressman Hill, the idea during the Clinton years was to admit the People’s Republic of China in the international organization and the IO’s will change China. In fact, China has changed the IO’s and not for the good.

Hill: Exactly right. My friend Scott Tipton out in Colorado, a Member of Congress, has a bill to make sure that the World Bank doesn’t have any prejudice towards hiring any employees from Taiwan, which China has successfully blocked through their influence at the World Bank. Just like we have seen at the World Health Organization where they are playing an outsized role in trying to influence these international, multilateral institutions.

Hewitt: I also believe you’ve got a 5G bill in committee and I think that people have to understand the lack of transparency that we have seen made transparent from the CCP, the Communist Chinese Party, applies to all the 5G discussion going on around the world. That is why people like you and Sen. Cotton from your state and others like Rep. Gallagher have raised the alarm about 5G. We just cannot trust the PRC to do our 5G.

Hill: No, and we’ve done that in the House Financial Services Committee both in oversight of Ex-Im Bank so that Ex-Im Bank can try to neutralize Chinese export subsidies for their 5G strategies around the world. We also have a new bill from one of our new members, Mr. Timmons of South Carolina who is making sure the international financial institutions are not supporting 5G technology expansion by China, that would be the World Bank and the other development banks.

Hewitt: Now, I have noticed a huge spike in bots, trolls on my various columns and Twitter account social media whenever I bring up the CCP and PRC. Obviously they have deployed their automatic army of bots to attack everyone. Have you come under that too? Are they trying to discredit the legislative work of the Financial Services Committee, both Democrat and Republican to increase transparency?

Hill: I think we are all aware on a bipartisan basis on House Financial Services that suddenly we are more under scrutiny from China; I don’t think there is any question about that. I think other members of Congress have noted that as well. Look, anybody who would try to cover up a pandemic, kick all of the major news organizations out of the country, in addition to the new range of repression that the Xi Government has done for religious activity in China -- we don’t need to know more to know that they’re behind the scenes equally aggressive.

Hewitt: When you say you want to ensure China’s debt transparency, would you explain that for the Steelers fans? That confuses the heck out of them.  

Hill: I don’t mean to get into jargon. Many third-world countries have had China come see them about financing – “Here: we’ll trade you concrete for oil and gas.” And, they’ve become indebted to China – not through a multilateral organization, but directly to China. And, many of those transactions are not known in the public – what the interest rates is, what the terms are. We saw Sri Lankans lose their airport to China. We’ve seen other third-world countries lose major strategic assets. So, this bill would say that if the World Bank is going to lend money to any developing country that we’re going to ask that country to be transparent – “What are your pricing terms of any loan you have from another sovereign government, i.e., a loan from China?” We think that can be a way to do two things: 1) put China on notice that we’re watching what they are doing. 2) that we give some public exposure to the fact that they are not lending money to the third world in a traditional way - a way that the Paris Club and other countries in Europe and the US have tried to help the developing world.

Hewitt: Congressman Hill,state-sponsored enterprises are a significant arm that the People’s Republic of China and the Communist Chinese Party. They own a lot of the entities and that clothes the entity with sovereign immunity when they operate abroad. And, people who want to sue China for covering up the Wuhan virus - its expansions, its origins, their malignant negligence at best of what happened here -- find themselves unable to do so because of sovereign immunity doctrine. Does the Financial Services Committee or the Judiciary have that issue before them or do you have to coordinate?

Hill: That may be across committees; it’s not our primary jurisdiction, but I think – I appreciate Sen. Cotton’s leadership in raising that issue and calling it to light. And the SOE (state-owned enterprises) are a problem across the board for trade, for lending, for our Ex-Im Bank. All these things present for listing in the United States for capital formation purposes; they don’t play by the rules. China is the only country now left in the world that doesn’t follow the Sarbanes-Oxley rules on audits standards. If you buy a company on the public market that’s a Chinese company, its audited statements are not in compliance with the rest of the world for accuracy or independence. And, this is the kind of thing they are getting away with that you point out beginning in the Clinton Administration when we thought, “Look, China’s going to pivot and come into the world and trade and in other multi-lateral efforts as a good global citizen. And I think they made efforts to do that. But it has pivoted in the last ten years and moved into a China-centric rival approach from trade to national security, and that’s where the United States and our friends in Asia and our friends in Europe have to pivot our strategy and counter that change in behavior.

Hewitt: Well, Gen. Secretary Xi is very accomplished world leader. And I think he has confounded the Democratic transition in China completely. Am I wrong just to point to him or does he in fact get the credit and the debit for everything they have done for the last ten years?

Hill: Well, I think the pivot is led by Xi. I think they now want to become the Middle Kingdom again, and that’s going to present challenges to America and national security and obviously as we’ve seen recently in our health.