06-27-25 *INTERVIEW* Rep. Gabe Evans Talks US Foreign Direct Investment Bill Passing House

Rep Gabe Evans (R-CO8) is getting some stuff done, more than usual for a freshman. We'll talk about his latest bill to pass the House.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
I'm very pleased to welcome back to the show Congressman

(00:02):
Gabe Evans. I had him on pretty recently, actually, Republican
representing Colorado's eighth congressional district. And well, first of all, Gabe,
good morning and welcome back.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
Good morning. Always good to be on with you.

Speaker 1 (00:15):
Thanks. So I want to do a little bit on
big beautiful bill. But first, I've noticed you've been busy
and you're you're actually getting a decent amount of stuff
done for a freshman congressman, which impresses me. And I
saw a press release about your third bipartisan bill to
pass the House, and it looks like an interesting bill,

(00:37):
so I wanted to ask you about it.

Speaker 2 (00:39):
Yeah. Absolutely, Like you said, we've introduced ten bills, three
of them by partisan have passed the House already, and
this one is the Global Investment in American Jobs Act. Basically,
it directs the Secretary of Commerce to look at how
do we attract more responsible foreign investment in the United States.
And when I say responsible, that's basically code for saying
not Chinese or Iran or Russian, but responsible investment. And

(01:03):
so this speaks directly to a couple of things. Hey,
we've got some of the best workers on planet Earth
in the United States, and we want our responsible foreign
allies to be able to invest in the United States,
take advantage of that, build it, produce it, and make
it manufacture it in the United States. And that's what
my bill looks at doing by directing again the Secretary
of Commerce to study this issue and identify any barriers

(01:26):
that may be preventing that from happening, and then coming
up with solutions to how do we actually get more
jobs from responsible for an overseas investment in the United States.

Speaker 1 (01:34):
And it is interesting to see in your bill specific
mention of the Chinese Communist Party, and I mean, I
think you're right to mention it. I don't know that
everybody's got the cajones to do that, But like one
of the things you talk about here efforts by the
Chinese Communist Party to circumvent existing laws to gain access
to US markets. Can you just elaborate a little more

(01:56):
on specifically in this kind of area that you're talking about,
what the Chinese risk is.

Speaker 2 (02:03):
Yeah, I mean the fact that the Chinese are just
sucking up every bit of information that they can about
the United States and then they played dirty on the
international stage. After they've stolen our ideas, stolen our technology,
then they go and they manufacture it in China with
basically no environmental regulations, no social responsibility. We know these
people use slave labor, and then on top of all

(02:25):
of that, then they go and extort their own people
for money, which they then use to subsidize industry in China.
And so it just makes it incredibly difficult for American
industry that's trying to do things the right way, pay
people good wages, be environmentally and socially responsible, to be
able to compete with the Chinese when they steal technology,
steal ideas, steal patents, go use slave labor, dirty coal

(02:48):
to go manufacture the stuff with no environmental regard, and
then on top of that they'll subsidize their own industries
just to try to give them a leg up. And
so we've seen this new administration has deployed a whole
host of resources to be able to combat these these
dirty tricks that the Chinese are playing on us. And
so this bill just adds to that by making sure
that we have every tool in the toolbox to figure

(03:10):
out how do we counter this threat. And part of
that is by again working with the responsible foreign overseas
investors and being able to build that coalition to really
be able to exert a lot of pressure on China,
which a makes them play by the rules, and then
b also takes care of American workers and American jobs.

Speaker 1 (03:27):
And just to clarify, so you said a lot of
stuff there, but you and I agree with everything you said.
This particular bill is focused, as you've been describing, on
foreign direct investment in the United States. So a lot
of what you said might apply legislatively, perhaps to a
different bill that might address, you know, what we do

(03:50):
or don't buy from China. And of course you got
Trump's tariffs on China. But what you're kind of doing here,
I think is is taking that mindset about how China
I'll just brought say cheats includes a lot of things
in that to say that given how much China cheats,
we should be very careful about what we allow them

(04:12):
to invest in here in the United States.

Speaker 2 (04:14):
Yeah, what we allow the Chinese to invest in the
United States versus say a close alley like Australia.

Speaker 1 (04:21):
That makes a lot of sense.