Trump Crushes TSP Decision

***NEWS RELEASE***

For Immediate Release

May 12, 2020

CONTACT:  Hamilton Strategies, [email protected], Patrick Benner, 610.584.1096, ext. 104, or Deborah Hamilton, ext. 102

WEBINAR ON THE TRUMP DECISION AND WHAT’S NEXT

Featuring Roger Robinson, LTG William “Jerry” Boykin and Frank Gaffney

On the afternoon of Wednesday, May 13, Committee on the Present Danger: China (CPDC) presented an online briefing on the President’s laudable intervention to prevent the Chinese Communist Party from tapping the federal government’s Thrift Savings Plan to enable its “unrestricted warfare” against this country and others (see below).

It featured Roger Robinson, the economic warfare specialist who helped Ronald Reagan destroy the last Communist regime that tried to take us down and a prime-mover behind this presidential decision, and Lieutenant General Jerry Boykin, U.S. Army (Ret.), one of America’s most storied special operators and the former Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, in an hour-long video-teleconference conversation moderated by Frank Gaffney, former Assistant Secretary of Defense (Acting) and Vice Chairman of the CPDC.

President Trump Crushes Decision to Invest Military, Other Federal Retirement Funds in Communist Chinese Companies

CPDC Gratified by Subordinates’ Letters Ordering TSP to Stand Down

WASHINGTON, D.C.—Yesterday, President Donald Trump delivered on his stated determination to prevent the federal Thrift Savings Plan from investing an estimated $4.5 billion in Chinese Communist Party companies. When he learned recently of this decision, Trump reportedly declared: “We can’t allow this to move forward. This needs to stop.” To his great credit and that of his administration, the order to do just that was dispatched in powerful letters on May 11 from no fewer than three of the President’s top subordinates: National Economic Council Chair Lawrence Kudlow, National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien and Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia.

The reasons given in the respective letters are extraordinarily compelling—as is the unmistakable direction they collectively provided to the outgoing chairman of the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board, Michael Kennedy. For example, Kudlow and O’Brien wrote in a joint letter to Secretary Scalia:

It has come to our attention that billions of dollars from our federal employees’ retirement fund will soon be invested in Chinese companies. This action would expose the retirement fund to significant and unnecessary risk, and it would channel money from federal employees’ money to companies that present significant national security and humanitarian concerns.

Further, the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board (Board) is set to implement these plans during a time of mounting uncertainty concerning China’s relations with the rest of the world, including the possibility that future sanctions will result from the culpable actions of the Chinese government with respect to the global spread of the COVlD‐l9 pandemic. In view of these considerations, we do not believe that proceeding with the investment of the retirement savings of hardworking federal workers in Chinese companies is prudent.

Citing the Kudlow-O’Brien letter, Secretary Scalia wrote Chairman Kennedy that:

The attached letter, which is authored by the President’s principal economic and national security advisors, establishes that linking the I Fund to the MSCI ACWI ex USA IMI would place millions of federal employees, retirees, and service-members in the untenable position of choosing between forgoing any investment in international equities, or placing billions of dollars in retirement savings in risky companies that pose a threat to U.S. national security. Moreover, because the federal government “matches” TSP contributions, selecting the MSCI ACWI ex USA IMI would result in the federal government funding activities that are diametrically opposed to US. military interests.

At the direction of President Trump, the Board is to immediately halt all steps associated with investing the I Fund according to the MSCI ACWI ex USA IMI, and to reverse its decision to invest Plan assets on the basis of that international equities index.

The Committee on the Present Danger: China (CPDC) is enormously gratified by the president’s decision and its faithful execution by his subordinates. After all, this is precisely the outcome that was recommended to President Trump in an open letterorganized by the Committee and sent on April 25. Its signers included 134 influential government, military, business and public policy leaders, freedom-fighters and other patriotic citizens who expressed—in language striking similar to the administration’s—their strong opposition to the imminent investment of the retirement funds of military personnel, active and retired, and past and present civilian federal government employees in “malevolent” Chinese companies. The letter called on President Trump to prevent such Thrift Savings Plan funds from “enriching the Chinese Communist Party [CCP], and enabling its further malevolence directed at the United States.”

The Committee on the Present Danger: China commends President Trump and his administration for intervening to prevent a strategic error for our country and a travesty for its servicemen and women and other federal employees. It looks forward to working with the Commander-in-Chief and his subordinates to build upon this pathbreaking action to ensure that other American investors are similarly protected from unwittingly placing their funds in risky Chinese companies—especially ones that pose a threat to our national security, vital interests and human rights values.

Such protection will require, among other things, that the Securities and Exchange Commission ensure that such CCP-tied corporations fully conform to U.S. statutes and regulations with respect to accounting, transparency and material risk disclosure that American companies listed on our stock and bond markets must satisfy.

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To interview representatives of the Committee on the Present Danger: China, contact

[email protected], Patrick Benner, 610.584.1096, ext. 104, or Deborah Hamilton, ext. 102.