Sometimes the mantra grows exhausting, and the conclusion that flows from it appears to conflict with other objectives.
Still, this one seems pretty cut and dried.
In a 45-second clip posted Sunday to the social media platform X, Republican Rep. Pat Harrigan of North Carolina, who last week introduced legislation designed to tighten security on military installations, took viewers on a short-and-spliced video tour of Fort Bragg, North Carolina, where he identified four retail stores owned by the Chinese Communist Party.
The retail stores in question belong to a company with which readers might have some familiarity — GNC, which sells vitamins, protein, supplements, and other health-related products geared toward fitness-conscious customers. The company has more than 4,000 retail locations domestically and more than 2,000 abroad.
According to the military news-focused website Task & Purpose, GNC started as a family-owned store in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, during the Great Depression. A company spokesperson told the outlet that the Chinese firm Harbin Pharmaceutical Group purchased GNC out of bankruptcy in 2020.
Of course, in a general sense, the relationship between Chinese businesses and the Chinese Communist government seems rather opaque. On one hand, China’s private sector has grown in recent decades. On the other hand, state-owned and mixed-ownership businesses in China accounted for 67 percent of market capitalization in that country, which the Communist Party has ruled with an iron fist since 1949.
Moreover, U.S. elected officials have already examined the relationship between China and GNC and have found cause for alarm.
In 2020, for instance, Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, now Secretary of State under President Donald Trump, asked for a security review of Harbin while its purchase of GNC remained pending, per The Wall Street Journal. Rubio feared that the acquisition could compromise Americans’ personal data.
“The acquisition of a major health and nutrition chain with over 5,200 retail stores in the United States and an expansive customer base presents the opportunity for state-directed actors to purchase this information legally,” Rubio said at the time.
Thus, Harrigan’s bill and video undoubtedly struck many national security-conscious officials as products of a legitimate cause for concern.
On April 1, Harrigan introduced H.R. 2551, the Military Installation Retail Security Act of 2025.
Then, in Sunday’s video, he showed viewers the locations of four GNC stores at Fort Bragg.
“If I have anything to say about this, and I do, they’re not gonna be here for long,” Harrigan said.
The congressman amplified that promise in a corresponding post.
“The Chinese Communist Party has no business anywhere near our warfighters!” Harrigan wrote.
I went to Fort Bragg, the heart of our Special Operations Forces, and found not one, not two, not three… but FOUR CCP-owned GNCs operating on base.
The Chinese Communist Party has no business anywhere near our warfighters! pic.twitter.com/Q5ZEs3drMg
— Congressman Pat Harrigan (@RepPatHarrigan) April 6, 2025
As of Tuesday morning, the congressman’s video had more than two million views on X.
In other words, the question of Chinese companies on U.S. military installations attracted great interest. And that included attention from one of Harrigan’s colleagues, Republican Rep. Ben Cline of Virginia.
“This is a MAJOR national security threat,” Cline wrote as part of a lengthier post.
This is a MAJOR national security threat: GNC, owned by the Chinese state-run Harbin Pharmaceuticals, operates 85 locations on U.S. military bases—including 7 in Virginia. They’re trying to hide their ties to China by failing to disclose ownership on https://t.co/6xrcB6svkS. We… https://t.co/gtIr1EPdRH
— Congressman Ben Cline (@RepBenCline) April 7, 2025
Meanwhile, GNC spokesman Nick Sero denied that any such threat existed.
“We are run by a U.S.-based leadership team and are governed by strict U.S. security protocols. Customer data is protected by third-party controls approved by the Department of Defense, and no data is shared with or accessible to our parent company,” Sero told Task & Purpose.
So what should readers make of all this?
Well, in a general sense, the never-ending “national security” mantra has grown tiresome. Any paranoid or bloodthirsty rogue official can cause endless trouble around the world simply by crying “national security.” Those rogues and their allies in the establishment media and elsewhere have spent decades priming Americans for exactly that.
Conversely, we already have a legitimate objective of inviting foreign investors while hoping to stave off foreign influence or infiltration. One welcomes the investment, but no serious Trump supporter likes the idea of rival or hostile foreigners purchasing American companies.
Thus, in the case of GNC and Fort Bragg, it would appear that we have the worst of both worlds. A longtime American-owned company, recently sold to China, strikes one as a symbol of the globalist war on America’s working class. And its appearance at U.S. military installations seems like something that people interested in protecting their borders would want to avoid.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
The post GOP Rep Introduces Bill After Discovering Chinese Communist-Owned Stores on US Military Base appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.