Commerce Cronyism: Inside Deals, Conflicts of Interest and Chinese Connections
by Peter Schweizer • May 16, 2022 at 5:00 am
The Commerce Department is the fourth most lobbied federal office, behind only the Treasury Department, Health & Human Services, and the White House itself. It is more lobbied than the bigger budgeted Department of Defense and Department of Transportation, despite managing a far smaller budget. This is no accident, because Commerce makes what can be life-and-death decisions for particular industries and businesses.
Yet the mission of this "hodgepodge" of administrative agencies, bureaus, and offices could not be more important. The Commerce Department's broad purpose is "to create the conditions for economic growth and opportunity."
Through its Bureau of Industry and Security, Commerce regulates what are known as "dual use" technologies, which have potential military applications for foreign powers, another sore spot in the US-China relationship.
Let's start with the current Secretary of Commerce, Gina Raimondo.
Artificial intelligence is the focus of the Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security because it often has direct military applications, making it sensitive for US national security.... In February of this year, [Andrew Moffit, Raimondo's husband] exercised his PathAI stock options and purchased at least $50,000 worth of its stock. He left his full-time job with the company and became instead its "strategic adviser," thus deepening his financial ties to the firm while creating an appearance of greater distance between his role with the company and his wife's duties as Commerce secretary.
In addition, Raimondo's department has loosened restrictions on Huawei, the Chinese telecom giant that Trump administration regulators had sanctioned, because of the company's ties to the Chinese government and particularly its military..... Huawei has been identified as a security threat by the governments of Japan, Taiwan, France, Great Britain, the US, Australia, and Germany, among others.
Then there was Wilbur Ross, Secretary of Commerce under President Trump. Ross was a successful businessman with huge commercial ties to China. He had shipping companies that had major Chinese investment... Wilbur Ross kept investments in companies directly affected by tariff policy, even as the Commerce Department handed out tariff exemptions and negotiated new trade agreements.
Before Ross, President Obama's Commerce Secretary was Penny Pritzker.... In 2015, the Clean Energy Trust, a Chicago-based not-for-profit supporting clean energy start-ups through business development, received $10 million of funding through a grant program administered by the Department of Commerce. It was the only Chicago-area group to receive such funding. Its board of directors was co-chaired at the time by Penny Pritzker's cousin, Nick Pritzker.
GAI's report discusses a number of other issues, personalities, and programs that are of questionable merit but generate high interest from Washington insiders who see their potential. The cronyism of past and present secretaries is but one part of the story the report tells. It is worth your attention.
The US Department of Commerce seldom grabs headlines or congressional scrutiny. It does not become "weaponized" against political opponents of the incumbent party. After the 2016 election, an article on Vox about incoming power-players of the Trump administration dismissed the department as a "hodgepodge of agencies," and a "Cabinet backwater."
Yet the mission of this "hodgepodge" of administrative agencies, bureaus, and offices could not be more important. The Commerce Department's broad purpose is "to create the conditions for economic growth and opportunity." The department has an important role in setting and executing US domestic and international trade policy. It administers tariffs and even arms control, through its regulatory oversight of military exports. These functions receive quite a bit more attention than the activities of such workaday agencies as the National Weather Service, the Bureau of the Census, and the US Patent and Trademark Office.
