Texas Rep. Gene Wu raises concerns about state's potential trade war with China

A Texas-sized trade war with China could be on the horizon.

Gov. Greg Abbott issued orders directing Texas authorities to track down and prosecute foreign government operatives who are harassing Texans. He also told state agencies to divest from any business group with direct ties to the Chinese government.

This action comes as state House committees are expected to consider legislation in the upcoming session to crack down on foreign adversaries like China.

FOX 7’s Rudy Koski spoke to newly elected Chairman of the House Democratic Caucus Gene Wu of Houston who praised the protective action by the governor, but says he has concerns about possible unintended consequences.

State Rep. Gene Wu: “The problem is when you pass these bills, when you make these statements without any kind of real context, without real explanation, my fear is that it’s going to cause a rise in anti-Asian hate. Where people will take it upon themselves to go find a little old lady in a parking lot or the bus, or whatever it is, and just take that into their own hands. I think there needs to be a firmer statement by the Governor and by all officials, that China is China. China has nothing to do with the Americans who are here, who are immigrants who fled China.”

Rudy Koski: “This may be a pivot from the border now that the Republicans will be in charge, you can’t just basically go down to the border and say ‘hey, you got to fix this now. They’ve got to do a pivot, and you pivot to China.'”

Rep. Wu: “I think it is likely that this is a political maneuver. Now Trump and everyone else is in charge of the border and Republicans are in charge the border they need to find a new Boogeyman.”

Koski: “Are you worried that this could have a ripple effect in the private industry, because there’s a lot of business here in Texas that has manufacturing in China that has ties to China.”

Rep. Wu: “If you just go down the Texas coast, you drive up and down, you will see all the petrochemical plants that were built by Chinese companies in Texas and those are thousands and thousands of high-paying jobs and there’s just billions upon billions invested in Texas by Chinese companies because there are reflective investments in China by Texas companies.”

Koski: “Should we be doing business with them? Why not shut it down?”

Rep. Wu: “I think at a more basic level, if we’re saying we need to try to cool things down, we need to step away from threats of war, threats of retaliation and all these things, we need to do more business together. We need to have more cultural exchanges. We need to have more people to people contact.”

Koski: “But if these companies have direct ties with the Chinese government and they’re adversaries, how can you trust them?”

Rep. Wu: “If we can’t do business with anybody from China, fine, then just say so. Then let’s go ahead and shut down Walmart. Let’s go ahead and shut down Target. Let’s go ahead and shut down all this different trade we have. They’re all companies that are based in China. If you look at your vehicle, most of your parts, a lot of the plastic, the seats, everything is produced in China. So are we going to say, ‘well, we’re not going to buy American cars either because some of their parts came from China.’ Where does this end?

That’s more the pragmatic question. If there are issues, can we address the issues without blowing up the apple cart? If you’re going to go cold turkey, you better have a plan. During the pandemic, we talked about, well, where are all our surgical masks? Where are all our respirators? Where is all our stuff? Well, it’s built in China. I mean, they’re American companies, but they’re built in China. Until you can unwind all of those things, this basically attempt to start a trade war from a state level, I think is kind of insane. There are ways we can address the threat that they pose. We can address the security issues, we can address the harassment of our citizens without just basically making everyone’s daily lives just an utter misery. Food prices, all prices will skyrocket immediately and much of the fact is we simply do not produce many of those goods in the United States, period. If people are okay either paying extremely outrageously high prices or just not having those items at all, then let’s keep going down this path, but if we want to fix things, if we want things to be better, talking has always been better than not talking.”

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