Recently, GOP Rep. Derrick Van Orden slammed the downstream supply chain impact of the Democrat-led EV agenda. During an appearance on Fox News Channel’s “Fox & Friends,” the Republican suggested the electric vehicle inputs, such as cobalt sourced from the Democratic Republic of Congo, should be viewed in the same light as blood diamonds.
Van Orden denounced the EV agenda, claiming its subsidies finance an ongoing “21st-century slavery.” The representative suggested that policies be tailored to prevent the purchase of the transition metal from the Democratic Republic of Congo so long as they utilize child labor for its extraction.
“[W]e’ve got 21st-century slavery that is being financed by the United States government by giving people tax rebates to buy electric vehicles. … This can be stopped by changing a couple policies and making sure that we are not buying cobalt from the Democratic Republic of Congo as long as they’re using children to mine it,” he stated.
Van Orden insinuated that the only difference between the Sierra Leone blood diamond controversy and the cobalt mining in the DRC is the ideological support from liberals who are incessantly pushing the green economy. The representative further emphasized the moral need to apply the blood diamond policy to the African nation while also slowing the EV adoption mandates imposed by Democrats.
He said, “Well, let me remind everybody of the blood diamond movement. When Sierra Leone was in a civil war, they were using children to mine diamonds and they were banned throughout the world and everyone was on board with that. …Now, the difference is this: A diamond is a luxury commercial item and it has no type of agenda behind it other than a luxury item.”
Explaining the horror of lithium mining in the Congo, he then said, “The problem with cobalt is, is that there’s an ideological bent by the Democrat[ic] Party to push the Green New Deal forward and they’re willing to do that at the expense of having children working in the conditions of slavery.”
“So, if we just redid the blood diamond policy, we will not accept cobalt from the Democratic Republic of Congo, and, more importantly, we’re going to start slow-rolling this arbitrary date of 2030, of having all vehicles produced in the United States of America being electric vehicles. It’s an unrealistic goal that I swear the Biden administration just threw a dart at a calendar and said, 2030’s it.” he continued.
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Former president Donald Trump recently sounded off on the EV agenda during a podcast appearance, where he slammed Democrats for wanting to “take your car away” to be replaced by an inferior electric vehicle. “It’s so crazy when you look at the fact that they want to raise taxes, when they want to take away your car and give you an electric car, that doesn’t go far. You got to you got to charge it up every 2 minutes. It’s ridiculous what’s going on. You should be able to buy an electric car, but you should be able to buy a combustion gas combustion car, a gasoline operated car. It’s so crazy what they’re doing, destroying our country,” he said.