Kamala Harris boosted solar firm linked to Chinese slave labor with nearly $2B in handouts to set up Georgia plant

The Harris-Biden administration helped out a South Korean solar company whose supply chain is tied to Chinese slave labor, a list of federally sanctioned entities shows, handing out nearly $2 billion to the firm to expand its presence in Georgia.Vice President Kamala Harris, 59, visited Hanwha Qcells manufacturing plant in Dalton, Ga., in April 2023, touting how the administration’s tax credits would expand the facility and help Hanwha build another one in nearby Cartersville to produce millions of panels as part of “the largest investment in solar energy in our nation’s history.”But the Seoul-based company is using polysilicon, a key component in manufacturing solar panels, from at least two suppliers that have been banned by the Department of Homeland Security because of their dependence on the forced labor of Ugyhur Muslims in China’s Xinjiang province, Bloomberg reported in July.Qcells’ sub-suppliers include the sanctioned Xinjiang GCL New Energy Material Technology and Xinjiang Daqo New Energy, Co.Ltd.

Its parent company Hanwha also has at least one of its own facilities based in the northwestern Chinese province.Biden, 81, first announced the partnership with the South Korean company in January 2023 — and his former Senate chief of staff, Danny O’Brien, was hired by Qcells as its executive vice president and head of US corporate affairs by March.Lobbyists had raked in hundreds of thousands of dollars while advocating for handouts to the firm to be included the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), Senate disclosures show, and the hard work paid off with $230 million in tax credits after the president signed the administration’s signature climate bill into law in December 2022.The following June, Qcells became a preferred vendor for the US government — even providing solar panels for the Pentagon — and the Department of Energy awarded a $1.5 billion loan guarantee in August to set up the Cartersville plant.While a spokeswoman for Qcells denied t...