The Rail Security Alliance announced support for a request that the U.S. Treasury Department include CRRC Corporation Limited on a list of PLA-controlled companies to safeguard the domestic rolling stock industry from foreign threat.
In a letter to U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, U.S. Reps. Mike Gallagher (R-WI-8) and John Garamendi (D-CA-3) said,“CRRC has already made anticompetitive incursions into the United States rolling stock market with state-backed financing, below-market pricing, and other anti-competitive tactics as a mainland Chinese state-owned enterprise. . . .”
“We are deeply concerned that CRRC will continue to undercut good-faith actors in the rail sector, further compromising the global rail market. Despite the company’s well-documented connections to China’s PLA, CRRC already provides passenger railcars to transit agencies across the United States, including Boston and Los Angeles. . . . Additional reporting on CRRC and its supply chains has found a troubling reliance on forced labor, including Uyghurs, and child labor in Madagascar mines.”
RSA Executive Director Erik Olson said, “Given the case against CRRC, which is years in the making, there is every reason that the Chinese state-own-enterprise should be added to Treasury’s list of PLA-controlled companies immediately.
“We are grateful for the support of Congressmen Gallagher and Garamendi. Their request highlights the important role that the domestic rolling stock market plays in the U.S. — and why it deserves safeguarding,” Olson added.
The letter to Sec. Yellen marks the third time in less than a month that bi-partisan lawmakers have called out CRRC as a Chinese state-owned-enterprise which threatens U.S. national and economic security. It also follows action by the U.S. Defense Department, which included CRRC on the Pentagon’s entity list for the second time.
