The issue of China will take center stage in Michigan’s U.S. Senate campaign this week.
Republican U.S. Senate candidate Mike Rogers is planning a rally Wednesday to rail against a Chinese company’s plans to build a battery plant in west Michigan.
Rogers blames Democrats, like his opponent Rep. Elissa Slotkin, for helping bring an investment opposed by many in the community.
“The federal government and state government gave this Gotion plant federal and state taxpayer dollars to bring a Chinese company here…that is unconscionable,” Rogers told reporters on a conference call Monday.
Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Elissa Slotkin said Friday that Rogers is trying to distract from his own business dealings with Chinese companies since he left Congress.
“Given some of the companies that Mr. Rogers was working on behalf of…their interests and their connections to the Chinese government,” Slotkin told reporters, “I think…they see an opportunity to try and change the conversation.”
Rogers worked as a security advisor for AT&T and a risk analyst for Nokia (a Finnish company) while those companies had loose ties to the Chinese telecom company Huawei.
Michigan voters will decide in November who will replace Democratic U.S. Senator Debbie Stabenow, who is retiring at the end of her current term.
UPDATE: This story was updated to identify the companies Mike Rogers worked for and clarify his role with those companies.
