INDIANAPOLIS — Having a business record with ties to China made little difference to a Republican who ran in a Republican Party primary six years ago in a deep-red state like Indiana. Now, in 2024, as the voting public increasingly sees the Asian superpower as a threat to America’s own standing in the world, that is no longer the case.
Just ask Mike Braun.
When he ran for Senate six years ago, Braun, who eschewed a jacket and tie for his signature blue shirt, defeated two Republican lawmakers in a slash-and-burn primary as an outsider and businessman. Never mind his track record of importing auto parts to his distribution company in Jasper, Indiana.
Now, however, China has become a major point of contention in the state’s gubernatorial campaign — a sign of how dramatically the politics around China have changed within the Republican Party. The threat of a rising China has been a dominant theme during the Republican primaries here, inspiring campaign ads, policy proposals and sometimes attacks. This year, the Indiana General Assembly moved to ban sister city deals with China and divest the state’s public pension system from the Asian nation’s pension investments.
And Braun himself attacked one of his opponents, Fort Wayne developer Eric Doden, as a “pro-China RINO,” expressing what he described as his “support for communist China.” (The source of the attack appears to be an economic development grant that Doden, as state economic development official, gave to General Electric Aviation to expand its operations in Indiana; the deal was signed at the time by the Indiana Secretary of Commerce Victor Smith, now a major Braun donor).
Braun, one of the wealthiest members of Congress, will leave the Senate at the end of his first term and is on track to win the May 7 Republican primary in Indiana’s Republican primary, in a state that has not seen a Democrat since 2000. has chosen this position. As a candidate, he has argued that he has a “proven conservative record of holding China to account” in a primary that has largely focused on the Midwest state’s vulnerability to the superpower.
But as the owner of an auto parts distribution company, Braun has economic ties to China, including his own company that imports Chinese-made parts and leases land near his headquarters to a second company that routinely imports products from the country into the U.S. .
And unlike when he ran for Senate, Braun’s business record, while not directly at odds with his policy proposals, is moving in a very different direction at a time when the superpower is viewed negatively by a large majority of the population , even though he has taken a stand. tough stance on China, saying the state is “not allowed” to negotiate with Chinese companies and touting a bill banning the purchase of U.S. farmland by countries associated with China. They also show how difficult it is to decouple two huge, intertwined economies.
Meyer Distributing, the company Braun has long owned in his political career and used to define himself as a “conservative outsider businessman,” still relies on China for some of its product lines.
As recently as April 19, at its headquarters in Jasper, Meyer imported products from Changzhou Sunwood International Trading Co., Ltd., which bills itself as the “largest and best truck bed cover manufacturer in China,” according to importGenius shipping data. The listed foreign port: Shanghai.
Braun’s campaign sent POLITICO to Meyer for questions about the recent shipment. A spokesperson for Meyer did not respond to a request for comment.
In addition, the company has a long-standing relationship with CYC Engineering, an aftermarket auto parts manufacturer that leases land from Braun just six miles from Meyer’s headquarters, and sources about 95 percent of its products from China, according to Panjiva. chain research unit of S&P Global Market Intelligence.
CYC CEO Yung Jen Chi, from Union City, California, has thrown his weight behind Braun’s 2018 Senate campaign. Campaign financials are shown here for the first time. Jen Chi did not respond to questions from POLITICO. CYC sells the Raptor series of truck running boards and other miscellaneous parts, which are sourced from China. A 2018 Associated Press investigation found that CYC had received 400 product shipments from Chinese manufacturers over the course of a decade — while Braun simultaneously built both his personal wealth and his political profile with Meyer.
Since taking his Senate seat in 2019, Braun has stepped away from Meyer’s day-to-day operations and his sons have taken over the company. But Meyer is still a central part of his political image. He mentions the company frequently while on the road and has had interviews with reporters there during his gubernatorial campaign. A campaign spokesman said that while he had office space there, it was rented by the campaign.
Braun’s campaign declined to make him available for an interview but pointed to his Senate bill introduced last year that would “ban the purchase of U.S. farmland by those associated with the governments of our foreign adversaries,” including China, Iran and North -Korea. and Russia.
In a statement, a spokesperson for Braun defended his reputation as a job creator at a company “that employs thousands of Americans,” citing the closeness of this story to Tuesday’s primaries.
“Mike Braun stood with President Trump in taking on China and will continue the fight to bring jobs back to Indiana as governor,” the spokesperson said.
Braun’s own dealings with China made headlines during his 2018 Senate race, when the Associated Press reported that Promaxx Automotive, which Braun’s company had patented, was making the parts in China.
Meyer’s dealings with China and Chinese companies illustrate the difficulty of separating the two economic giants, even at a time when China is becoming politically verboten territory. As recently as 2019, two-term Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb traveled to China, which at the time was backing 21 Indiana companies.
In every public poll, Braun has led Indiana’s six-member GOP gubernatorial field — including Lt. Gov. Suzanne Crouch, Indianapolis businessman Brad Chambers, Doden, former Indiana Attorney General Curtis Hill and faith leader Jamie Reitenour — since he entered the race of 2022.
Former President Donald Trump endorsed Braun in November, and Donald Trump Jr. appeared here earlier this spring at a rally for him and other ballot candidates.