Lawmakers from both parties believe China poses a generational threat — one that all of American society has to work together to confront.
But as China hawks try to advance their ideas this year, they aren’t just contending with the Chinese government. They’re also fighting for a voice in Donald Trump’s new administration, while Elon Musk — who has deep business ties with China — wields unprecedented influence and has near-unfettered access to government agencies.
It’s not clear who will come out on top or if tough-on-China Republicans will seriously stand up for their priorities.
Rep. John Moolenaar, the Michigan Republican who chairs the select committee on competition with the Chinese government, has raised alarms about how American businesspeople are often afraid to challenge Chinese leaders.
“The love of money is the root of all evil,” he said during an event at the Institute of World Politics this week. “Money is very tempting for people.”
But when NOTUS followed up by asking if he’s concerned at all about Musk’s influence on China policy, the congressman avoided answering directly. He said instead that he trusts the allies he does have in the administration.
“In the White House, you’ve got Sen. Rubio, who is fantastic on these issues,” Moolenaar said. “John Ratcliffe is very good. Mike Waltz — I have a lot of confidence in the president’s team in these areas, who very well understand the threat of China.”
“As we develop the right policies, business will follow the policy,” he added.
Musk isn’t just following the policies Congress has passed to address concerns about China, though. He’s shaping, and sometimes unilaterally canceling, those policies. This week, he reportedly asked the Treasury Department to halt congressionally approved funding for the National Endowment for Democracy, which Congress created decades ago to promote human rights and freedom around the globe. It still enjoys broad support among lawmakers. Many of the pro-democracy organizations that are funded by the NED are led by Chinese dissidents, who work to shed light on the CCP’s repressive behavior. Musk has called the NED a “SCAM.”
Even though Moolenaar’s committee has heard testimony from and supports people involved in those organizations, on Thursday, he defended the freeze.
“DOGE is doing an audit and digging in on these issues,” he told NOTUS. “I haven’t had a chance to review their findings but look forward to that.”
“Congress has the power of the purse, as you know, and I’m confident that we’ll go through our process,” he added. “They’re going through their process of identifying waste, fraud and abuse, and it’s important that we have hearings and get to the bottom of some of these areas.”
In the last Congress, the select committee that Moolenaar chairs often pressed the Biden administration to be tougher on China. House Republicans established the committee with then-Rep. Mike Gallagher as its chair, to recognize “that China’s ‘peaceful rise’ was pure fiction and finally confront the CCP with the urgency the threat demands.”
Now, GOP lawmakers are seemingly willing to dial back the urgency while Musk reviews congressional spending and decides if he agrees with it. And Democrats are the ones urging American officials to be more assertive with China. It could foreshadow a partisan rift for a committee that has prided itself on being mostly bipartisan.
In interviews with NOTUS, Republicans have repeatedly dismissed Musk’s conflicts of interest. And as Musk carries out his plans, Republicans say they are unconcerned that the programs he is targeting first are some of the same programs the Chinese government would also like to see scrapped.
“Elon is an equal-opportunity basher of bureaucracy,” Rep. Chip Roy of Texas said this week.
Others said they were surprised that anyone might question his sprawling business entanglements.
“I would challenge the premise,” Rep. Dusty Johnson, another GOP member of the select committee, told NOTUS on Thursday when asked about Musk’s influence on China policy. “Before we level accusations, we’ve got to have a little evidence in the tank.”
“Nobody has done more to wake up America to the threat from the Chinese Communist Party than Donald Trump,” Johnson said.
Yet China hawks have found indifference and even fierce resistance to their ideas in corners of the new administration. Trump has shown little interest in being aggressive toward China beyond hiking tariffs on imports, a personal hobbyhorse. He announced his own support for keeping TikTok legal after reentering the White House and invited Chinese leader Xi Jinping to his inauguration.
Musk has key Tesla manufacturing operations in China, and he met with a senior Chinese official who was in the U.S. for Trump’s inauguration to talk about his companies. One of Trump’s old advisers has gone so far as to opine that Musk is an “agent of influence” for the Chinese government. And Musk’s opposition to a spending package in December killed legislation that would have restricted American companies’ investment in sensitive sectors in China, such as artificial intelligence. Moolenaar had painstakingly worked for months to pass that bill into law.
He still wants to pass it, along with other big ideas to counter the Chinese government. He hopes to end permanent normal trade relations with China, get rid of apps like TikTok and continue arming Taiwan to defend itself against a potential attack. But to push those priorities over the finish line, as well as any new human rights sanctions, China policy experts believe his committee will have to get a lot more vocal.
“They’re going to have to fight for the president’s attention on what would normally be called competitive actions,” a longtime GOP China policy hand and former congressional aide, who asked to speak anonymously to be candid, told NOTUS this week.
Just one Republican lawmaker who spoke with NOTUS for this story sounded eager to do that — and to hold the Trump administration accountable.
Rep. Dan Newhouse of Washington, another member of the select committee on competition, responded to a question about Musk on Thursday with withering sarcasm: “What are you suggesting? That there’s a conflict of interest or something?”
Newhouse said lawmakers will exercise oversight of Trump’s China policies.
“We’re going to have an open book on everything,” he told NOTUS.
Democrats, meanwhile, are floored by Musk’s moves.
“Wow,” Rep. Ro Khanna, a Democrat who sits on the select committee, responded to the news of NED’s funding being frozen. “I’m very concerned about the constitutionality.”
“We can’t be soft on China,” Khanna said.
And Sen. Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat who serves on the Foreign Relations Committee, described the Trump administration’s China policy so far as “purposefully weak.”
“I don’t think we’re being weak on China just for the hell of it,” he told NOTUS. “We’re being weak on China because there’s a bunch of billionaires that make money over there.”
“Elon Musk has no interest in alienating the CCP,” said Rep. Ritchie Torres, a New York Democrat. “The China committee has to closely examine the Trump administration’s approach to China. I worry that Trump is willing to sell out the interests of the United States.”
Critics say Trump’s freeze on foreign aid has opened a vacuum for Chinese influence to grow in developing nations. Executive appointments are offering mixed messages too. New Secretary of State Marco Rubio was one of the most vocal critics of the Chinese government while he served in Congress — but his interim appointee for a senior State Department role, Darren Beattie, has frequently praised China’s tactics as a model for America to follow and has repeatedly suggested that the United States should give self-governed, democratic Taiwan to China in exchange for something else (like dirt on American politicians).
Rep. Jim McGovern, a Massachusetts Democrat who worked on China legislation with Rubio and has praised him for it, sent a letter to Rubio on Thursday slamming him for hanging “the Uyghur people out to dry.” He demanded Beattie’s removal and asked for foreign aid to be reinstated.
“It is baffling to see that you appointed Darren Beattie, a Uyghur genocide denier, to be Acting Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, a position in which he is responsible for the tone and content of America’s public messaging to the world,” McGovern wrote, according to a copy of the letter obtained by NOTUS.
“The appointment of Mr. Beattie and the funding freeze can only have been welcomed by Chinese government and Communist Party officials in Beijing,” he said. “If the funding freeze were to put Uyghur NGOs out of business, your decision would provide tangible benefit to Chinese aims.”
When reached for comment, a State Department spokesperson told NOTUS that “as a general matter, we do not comment on Congressional correspondence.”
Moolenaar recognized the upheaval caused by the foreign aid freeze this week, but he went on to argue it will ultimately help America’s strategy.
“Right now is a very important time to rethink what we’ve done in the past and innovate with new ideas,” he said. “Some of the chaos that’s happening right now with foreign aid — and, you know, people very concerned about it — I think as we dig into this, we’re going to find out what’s been working and what hasn’t been working.”
Democrats aren’t exactly optimistic that their Republican colleagues will join them in publicly asking the administration to be tougher on China.
“It’s not legal to shut down funding that has been appropriated. Even setting aside the conflict of interest question, none of what is happening is legal,” Sen. Brian Schatz of Hawaii told NOTUS in an interview.
“I’m looking forward to any Republican pushing back on anything, at any point soon,” he said with exasperation, as he stepped into an elevator with Alaska GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski.
Murkowski, taking issue with that remark, jokingly pretended to shove Schatz out of the elevator.
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Haley Byrd Wilt is a reporter at NOTUS. Samuel Larreal is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.