Earlier this month, Hung Kao, a retired U.S. Navy captain and candidate for the Virginia Senate, toured a state-of-the-art nitrile rubber factory nearing completion in southwest Virginia that was abandoned by President Joe Biden’s administration, and said China is the largest U.S. He acknowledged that Japan is on track to become a supplier country. Medical rubber gloves, he told Breitbart News in an exclusive interview.
“I don’t understand why Joe Biden hates America so much and hates American manufacturing so much,” Cao said in a recent phone interview after the visit. “We are patiently waiting for Nov. 5 so we can begin this process to really foster industry in Southwest Virginia and bring more revenue to a depleted region.”
Cao said that during the Trump administration, the Department of Defense (DOD) and Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) awarded Blue Star NBR a federal grant to build a nitrile rubber factory to produce the rubber needed to make blue rubber gloves. He said he was doing so. They would be needed in the United States in the event of a new pandemic or national emergency, reducing the United States’ dependence on imported gloves.
December 8, 2023 at the Blue Star NBR Plant in Wytheville, Virginia. (Alison Lee Eisley, The Washington Post, via Getty Images)
The Wytheville, Virginia, plant was expected to create 2,500 jobs, generate $1.3 billion in revenue for the region, and ultimately create 4,000 additional jobs. Local Virginia politicians (both Republicans and Democrats) supported the project.
Blue Star NBR completed construction of the nitrile rubber plant in spring 2023, but ran out of funds before it could be connected to power due to inflation and rising costs of construction materials and energy costs.
But since last year, the Biden administration’s Department of Health has refused to provide additional funding to connect the completed plant and build a rubber glove factory planned next door. Blue Star NBR was forced to begin a downtime period for equipment in its factory.
Cao said he saw 60 brand new mixers, each 15 feet in diameter, at the state-of-the-art factory, but their engines had to be removed and stored in a temperature-controlled area to prevent them from rusting.
Blue Star NBR CEO Scott Meyer’s appeal to the Biden administration has fallen on deaf ears. Meanwhile, the Biden administration has reportedly provided subsidies to a factory in Louisiana that lags far behind Bluestar NBR.
Virginia Senate candidate and retired U.S. Navy Captain Hung Cao tours a nitrile rubber factory in southwest Virginia. (Photo provided by Hung Cao)
As Breitbart News’ Matthew Boyle recently reported, in the short time it took to build the nitrile rubber factory, China went from being a small global supplier of gloves to now America’s (and the world’s) largest supplier. is on track to become
The United States uses 120 billion to 150 billion gloves a year for everything from medical appointments to lab work to food preparation, and Cao used cheap and potentially defective gloves made in China. He emphasized the impact on national security of doing so.
“Gloves affect us in so many ways right now. They touch us every day. So everyone from first responders to surgeons and doctors, to meat packers in stores and “We need to consider not only the restaurant industry, but also microchip manufacturing,” he said.
“Then the problem is latex gloves made in China. You don’t know what the quality is like, right? So let’s go back to the drywall case of 2010. Back then, chemicals were oozing from the drywall, and electrical wires and The insulation in the pipes was eroding. And before that, there was also contaminated dog food and baby milk. So this is a problem with products made in China, with no quality control. So if something goes wrong, who do you sue?” he said.
Cao also raised the possibility that China, which is responsible for the coronavirus pandemic in the first place, may refuse to supply gloves to the United States.
“What if we have another pandemic or another emergency and we need it? And they say, ‘No, we’re not going to give you anything.’ “This is the same glove we use for chemical and biological reactions,” he said.
Cao said that during the COVID-19 pandemic and with the Obama administration’s depletion of the National Strategic Stockpile, the United States found that much of the necessary personal protective equipment (PPE) was not manufactured in the United States. Ta.
(Photo provided by Hung Cao)
“In fact, when it comes to latex gloves, 98% of our gloves are manufactured outside of the United States. And it has become a strategic and national security issue,” he said, adding:
President Trump approved the so-called Defense Production Act, authorizing the Department of Health and Human Services to give loans and subsidies to companies that start manufacturing everything from masks to gloves in the United States. The company is located in southwestern Virginia, in an area devastated by attacks on the coal industry. They were able to build this plant that could produce about 25 percent of what the United States needed.
Cao said Blue Star NBR needs about $70 million to get the factory up and running and start making gloves. But Cao said Meyer has “less than zero” expectations that Biden will provide new grants.
“It only takes an additional installment from HHS to build the first factory, and the revenue from the first factory can pay for the other five. And President Biden has not reiterated that. So did two senators from Virginia. [Mark] Warner and [Tim] Kane did nothing to promote it. So millions of dollars worth of equipment sits there every day, rusting away. “It could be making latex gloves for Americans,” he said.
(Photo provided by Hung Cao)
President Joe Biden has touted efforts to strengthen U.S. manufacturing in his State of the Union address and at campaign events around the country, but Cao said Biden’s HHS would not allow more funding for the nearly completed manufacturing sector. He said he was shocked that they were refusing to provide it. project.
“What’s shocking is the fact that HHS said no. We have what we need. Because, again, they don’t rely on American products, they rely on products made in China. “Because I do,” he said.
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