First appeared on FOX: The Biden appointee, who has donated tens of thousands of dollars to Biden’s campaign and is married to a former aide to Biden, who was a senator at the time, has played a key role in attracting Chinese companies to Delaware.
Michael Marquardt, President Biden’s 2022 nominee to the U.S. Commission on Overseas Heritage, has spent the past 20 years advising international companies and in recent years helped the Delaware Prosperity Partnership (DPP) attract Chinese companies to invest in Delaware.
Marquardt, who has served as a “global advisor” to the DPP since 2017, has used his social media accounts to promote his efforts to introduce Chinese business leaders and companies to Delaware.
“Today we welcomed over 50 Chinese business executives to the First State, a visit organized and sponsored by Bank of China,” Marquardt wrote. Facebook post from 2015. “After a program highlighting the benefits and advantages of Delaware as the ‘Gateway to America,’ we toured Incyte Corporation, one of the fastest growing companies in the country. The visitors were very impressed. Delaware is the only state they visit outside of New York City and Washington DC (for tourism purposes).”
Hunter Biden says Chinese Communist Party chief wanted him to visit China to ‘discuss business opportunities’: emails
President Biden, Michael Marquardt and former President Bill Clinton attend a fundraiser in New York City. (Michael Marquardt X Account)
The previous day, Mr. Marquardt posted on his Facebook profile from New York City that then-Delaware Governor Jack Markell, a Biden ally, was “receiving the International Leadership Award from the China Chamber of Commerce at the Bank of China’s new U.S. headquarters building at 7 Bryant Park in Manhattan.”
“The building isn’t even finished yet, so it was amazing to get to see it before it officially opens.” Marquardt continued:“The ceremony capped a day of business matching sessions with more than 100 Chinese companies, including 21 from Delaware, and more than 100 U.S. companies.”
That same year, Marquardt posted a Facebook post touting Delaware’s funding for “an expansion of the China Summer Study Abroad Program for high school students studying Chinese,” and tweeted the hashtag “#ForwardThinkingDelaware.”
“And today we welcomed two busloads of Chinese business executives to @DelawareGlobal to learn more about Delaware,” Marquardt said. Post to X A photo was also posted in 2015 of what appeared to be a bus full of Chinese business executives arriving in Delaware.
Experts warn that Biden is leading China, Russia into ‘shocking’ partnership: ‘Biggest blunder’
Chinese President Xi Jinping attends the closing ceremony of the National People’s Congress at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on March 11, 2024. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)
In 2016, the final year of the Obama-Biden administration, Marquardt Post to Facebook He spoke of attending a “very special event” in New York City “celebrating the strengthening business ties between China and the United States.”
“Delaware is once again at the forefront of the world!” he added.
According to photos posted by Marquardt, he was attending the China-US Economic and Trade Cooperation Conference. Includes keynote speeches From Hu Chunhua, who was then a member of the powerful Politburo of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and party secretary of Guangdong province.
Chunhua currently serves as vice chairman of the 14th National People’s Congress of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), a “core part” of China’s united front system, which aims to “coopt and neutralize potential opposition to the policies and authority of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP),” according to a 2018 report by the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission.
Later that year, Marquardt visited Washington DC for the closing ceremony of the 2016 China-US Tourism Year, according to Andrea Tinianou in a post on X. Tinianou is the founder of Global Delaware, a Delaware Department of State initiative created to “help Delaware businesses develop overseas markets, attract foreign companies to set up operations in Delaware, and enhance Delaware’s role as a leader in corporate governance.”
She also served as chief innovation officer and executive vice president of Global Compass Strategies, a “globally acclaimed consulting firm” founded by Marquardt, according to her LinkedIn profile. Marquardt was invited to a luncheon for Vice Premier Wang Yang, one of China’s most powerful Communist Party leaders, by the China General Chamber of Commerce (CGCC), a New York City-based group that is admired by Communist Party officials in Beijing, according to one media report. Facebook post from 2016.
The event was attended by several senior Democratic Party figures, including former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and President Obama’s ambassador to China, Max Baucus.
in 2018 Facebook PostMarquardt posted a photo of a “follow-up meeting with the China Entrepreneurs Club in Beijing,” calling the meeting “productive.”
2014 BBC profile article The committee describes itself as “China’s richest club,” made up of “46 of China’s top business leaders” and including “politicians, academics and other advisers,” including several billionaires. The group now has more than 60 members, according to its annual report last year.
The honorary chairman is Alibaba founder Jack Ma, who has ties to the Chinese Communist Party and is said to have helped develop surveillance technology for Uighurs in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region. Held multiple top positions According to the annual report, he has served as a member of the Communist Party of China, including as a representative to the 16th and 17th National Congresses, and a representative to the 9th, 10th and 11th National People’s Congresses.
In a 2019 social media post, Marquardt said he had traveled to Washington, DC, to represent the DPP and “enjoyed a reunion with longtime friends” from CGCC and Bank of China at the Select USA summit. Select USA is “a federal program housed within the U.S. Department of Commerce tasked with promoting and facilitating business investment in the United States.”
China played a major role Delaware has a significant economic impact and will receive $498 million in exports in 2023, according to the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition.
2022, CGCC Post published The group’s “member companies” visited Wilmington, Delaware, to “learn about Delaware’s economy through site visits and interactions with local government officials,” and a “presentation” was given by DPP’s Marquardt and the group’s president and CEO, Kurt Foreman.
“Following their visit to DPP headquarters, members enjoyed a special welcome dinner hosted by President John Carney at the historic Hotel DuPont in downtown Wilmington,” the post continued.
2023 Linkedin Post Profile Marquardt It also includes several quotes about his passion for working with foreign countries looking to invest in the U.S., including him saying, “I’m always amazed at how little people in other countries know about Delaware.”
He went on to say that Delaware is “an incredibly welcoming place, even while moving at the pace that innovative companies require” and that it’s “really fun.”[s] It teaches them why so many businesses choose to come here.”
‘Like a son’: Ex-Biden adviser with deep business ties to China spotted at Hunter Biden gun trial
President Biden and Hunter Biden attend the Easter Egg Roll at the White House on April 1, 2024. (Michael Reynolds/EPA/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
According to a Fox News Digital investigation, Marquardt’s ties to Biden date back more than two decades, to when his wife, Claire DeMatteis, was a senior adviser to Senator Biden, a position she held from 1994 to 2004.
Ms. Marquardt, a native of West Berlin, Germany, who immigrated to the United States in the early 1990s, posted a video last summer from their 20th wedding anniversary party in which Mr. Biden was seen proposing a toast in 2003 on behalf of her father, who died when Ms. DeMatteis was 9 years old.
In his toast, Biden called Marquardt a “great guy” and joked that he only questioned her relationship with Biden’s brother-in-law, Jack Owens, who is married to his sister, Valerie Biden Owens. The reference appeared to be a reference to Marquardt’s co-founding and CEO role at Mediguide, a telemedicine company that Owens invested in in the early 2000s and later bought and ran. According to an archived biography On the Mediguide website.
Fox News Digital previously reported that Owens had contacted his nephew, Hunter Biden, to ask for help obtaining a business license in China.
Marquardt, who served on Biden’s national finance committee from 2019 to 2020, and his wife have donated heavily to Biden’s PAC and campaigns from the Senate to the presidential level. From 2003 to 2024, the Delaware couple Donate over $50,000 FEC records show he has supported Biden’s campaign.
Over the years, Marquardt has posted several photos of Biden on his social media accounts and LinkedIn profile, and touted his connection to Biden on his business website. X, Facebook, LinkedIn background image He and his wife appeared Earlier this year, he was photographed with President Biden, former Presidents Obama and Clinton at a celebrity-studded fundraiser in New York City, and has also posted photos of himself and his wife at the White House during Biden’s administration, including at a Christmas party and Independence Day celebration.
“I’m a welcomed business advisor in boardrooms around the world,” Marquardt’s website says, next to a photo of him and Biden shortly after he announced his presidential bid in 2019. “As a trusted strategist who quickly understands business culture and drives change from within, I specialize in advising US companies looking to expand into Europe and Asia, as well as companies interested in entering the US market.”
Click here to get the FOX News app
President Biden speaks at a campaign event in Philadelphia on April 18, 2024. (Hannah Beyer/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Fox News Digital reached out to Marquardt and the White House for comment but did not receive a response.
