North Dakota senators tried to kill Chinese corn mill project amid national security review: emails

As a North Dakota city awaits a national security review for a controversial proposed Chinese corn mill in its midst, the state’s two Republican senators personally urged local officials to kill the project without waiting for the probe’s conclusion, public records released by the municipal administration to a local news agency showed.

The revelation came in the form of emails dated August 18 and sent hours after a conference call involving North Dakota’s two US Senators, Kevin Cramer and John Hoeven, Governor Doug Burgum, US Representative Kelly Armstrong and Grand Forks Mayor Brandon Bochenski.

The emails were released at the request of Forum Communications, a local news agency, Bochenski said. The emails of public officials in North Dakota, he added, were “available to anyone who makes a public records request”.

In the email exchange, Hoeven’s communications director, Alex Finken, sent a draft press release to the group announcing they were “recommending that the project not move forward”. It cited the “ongoing national security concern resulting from the project’s proximity to the Grand Forks Air Force Base”, according to the emails.

The statement asserted that the US congressional delegation, governor and mayor in a “joint statement” had agreed that “China’s growing aggression and espionage efforts represent a real threat to our nation”.

It noted that the senators had requested an investigation of the project be conducted by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), a federal inter-agency body charged with assessing national security risks involving foreign investments.

But the statement added “this will not be a transparent process and the details of the review may not be in the public record” and that “there will still be unaddressed security concerns that will impact the continued development of the Grand Forks Air Force Base missions” even if the CFIUS probe deemed the project clear to proceed.

In response to Finken’s email, Bochenski described the draft “statement” as an “inaccurate depiction of the conversation”. The mayor said he was “not able to sign on to that statement on behalf of the city and city council”.

“We have all asked for objective due diligence in this long process, and frustration mounts when little or no national security facts have been offered after 10 months,” Bochenski added.

Both emails cc’d the offices of Cramer and Burgum, and the draft press release was never publicly issued.

The corn mill project belongs to Fufeng USA, a subsidiary of China-based Fufeng Group. First approved in November 2021, the project has drawn suspicion in the North Dakota city of 58,000 residents since early this year.

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Some in the community have labelled the plans to build a US$700 million agribusiness facility a smokescreen for espionage activities. Some residents also fear the project could “bring Communist China” to their neighbourhood.

Still others have raised concerns that the project would be located merely 12 miles from Grand Forks Air Force Base, home to top US intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities.

City leaders have maintained the project offers significant economic potential. Proponents say the mill would create some 700 jobs directly and indirectly as well as generate up to US$1 million in additional annual property tax revenue.

Construction work on the plant was halted in September when CFIUS asked Fufeng USA to provide more information.

A final CFIUS review report on Fufeng’s investment in Grand Forks is expected to be released on December 12.

While Hoeven’s office did not respond to the Post’s request for comment on the emails, Cramer’s communications director, Molly Block, who was cc’d on the exchange in question, replied that Cramer’s position had “not changed” and that he had been outwardly critical of the project “months before” recommending the CFIUS review.

“He requested the CFIUS review to aid the city and state,” Block said via email.

Separately, Bochenski told the Post via email that although Cramer had made his stance on the project known for many months, Hoeven had “recently switched gears and come out against the project as well”.

Bochenski said the city administration had confidence in the CFIUS process and that the committee “exists for the sole purpose of vetting national security concerns in business related activity”.

“Regardless of the senators’ stance, the city of Grand Forks has no authority to stop land transactions between private parties, whether foreign or domestic,” Bochenski wrote.

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Dana Sande, president of Grand Forks’ city council, expressed confusion over the senators’ pressuring city leaders “to go out of their way to put an end to the project before a CFIUS review”.

Sande said it was “completely illogical” of the senators to first push for a CFIUS probe and then turn around and say “they don’t think it’s really transparent”.

“I’ve been on our city council in Grand Forks for 12 years, and I’ve never had the senators intervene in anything,” said Sande. “I don’t know if they’re getting political pressure from elsewhere, or what the deal is.”

Sande believed that residents who voiced opposition to the project on social media did not represent “a good cross-section of the community”.