Gotion Inc., a U.S. subsidiary of China’s Gotion High-tech Co. Ltd., plans to operate electric vehicle battery factories in the villages of Manteno, Illinois, and Green Charter Township, Michigan. Gotion plans to manufacture battery cells in Michigan and ship them to Manteno, where they will be assembled into battery packs. But after initially securing permits and support from the governors involved, Gotion is now trying to fend off local residents determined to stop both plants. The Illinois plant was preparing to open, but the Trump campaign recently made the planned Michigan factory an issue, and Democrats there, who once rushed to the Chinese company’s defense, are now beginning to back away from it.

The objections are justified. For many reasons, neither of the two facilities should be permitted.

Last September, Illinois Governor JB Pritzker announced that Gotion had decided to build a $2 billion factory in his state to produce lithium batteries for electric vehicles. The company had received over $500 million in tax breaks. Pritzker said the factory would create 2,600 jobs.

Although the governor appears to have exaggerated the Chinese company’s plans for Illinois, residents are concerned. “The Chinese-controlled Gotion plant is a threat to our community,” Amanda Piker, a Manteno resident and founding member of Concerned Citizens of Manteno, told me. “If the plan is fully implemented, thousands more people will come to our town of 9,000 and our schools, housing and infrastructure will be under pressure. The deal was made behind closed doors and without community involvement.”

Opposition in Michigan and Illinois has also focused on the substantial subsidies Gotion has received. Ohio Senator JD Vance traveled to Michigan this month to support residents trying to block the plant. “I think the most important thing is we need to stop paying Chinese manufacturers to produce, whether it’s here or overseas,” the Republican vice presidential candidate said.

“Only someone who hates America and taxpayers would give a dime to Gotion, which is backed by the Chinese Communist Party, let alone a $536 million tax subsidy from Illinois and possibly another $7 billion from federal taxpayers,” Jeanne Ives, a former Illinois state legislator and leading critic of the Manteno plant, said in an emailed comment. “President Biden and Governor Pritzker are forcing taxpayers to subsidize our enemy for his Green New Deal fantasies.”

Mike Rogers, a former Republican congressman running for Senate in Michigan, points out that the tax money going to Gotion allows the Chinese company to poach employees from local companies. Rogers’ opponent, Rep. Elissa Slotkin, is now raising concerns about Gotion’s plans.

There is also a more general concern that the Chinese regime has found another way to infiltrate American society. The nonprofit Concerned Citizens of Manteno is suing to stop the “gigafactory” there because Gotion has ties to the Chinese Communist Party.

“We cannot afford to give the Chinese regime any more influence in our already infiltrated state and country,” Ives, also CEO of Breakthrough Ideas, a conservative political organization, told me by phone this week.

Opponents also raise Gotion’s use of forced labor. “There is irrefutable evidence that two battery manufacturers affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party, Gotion and CATL, are closely tied to forced labor and the ongoing genocide in China,” said Republican Rep. John Moolenaar (Mich.), chairman of the House Select Committee on Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party, before the passage of the foreign battery system decoupling bill. “Gotion and CATL plan to build factories in the United States, increasing our dependence on their slave labor-ridden supply chains.”

The bill, one of 25 “China Week” bills passed by the House of Representatives this month, prohibits the Department of Homeland Security from purchasing batteries from six companies, including Gotion.

Almost all of China’s green products are made using forced labor from Uyghurs and other minorities. The U.S. Tariff Act of 1930, amended by the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act of 2021, prohibits the import of such products made using forced labor. The Biden administration, which tried behind the scenes to block the 2021 law, has not vigorously enforced this ban.

Enforcement of the regulations will thwart Gotion’s plans. For example, the company plans to use components contaminated by forced labor in China at its Manteno plant. Containers from China have already arrived in the village.

“Our government should never buy batteries from companies beholden to the CCP,” Moolenaar said this month. “We cannot be dependent on our greatest adversary and must ensure that the CCP can never profit from its genocide and human rights abuses.”

Chairman Moolenaar is right. The United States is contractually obligated to “prevent and punish” genocide in Article I of the 1948 Genocide Convention. The Trump administration, on its last full day in office, officially declared that China’s campaign against the Uighurs and other Turkic minorities constituted such a crime, and the Biden administration confirmed that declaration soon afterward.

At the very least, the U.S. should not effectively fund genocide by supporting a company like Gotion. Even if Biden is not particularly active in enforcing the Genocide Convention, residents of Michigan and Illinois are trying to protect their communities.

Yes, the line must be drawn at Gotion.

Gordon G. Chang is the author of The Coming Collapse of China and the upcoming Plan Red: China’s Project to Destroy America. Follow him on X @GordonGChang.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author.