Gotion Shows the Cost of Letting China Buy Its Way Into America

For years, Americans have been warned about China's growing influence over critical industries, but sometimes the threat is easier to understand when it reaches a local community. In Manteno, Illinois, residents are now living alongside an operation owned by Gotion, a Chinese battery company, after state and local officials offered the company hundreds of millions of dollars in incentives to establish itself there. Now, local residents are fighting over the plant in court, while questions remain about the promises made to taxpayers and the extent to which the community can hold the company and the officials who approved the deal accountable. This is not simply a story about one battery factory. It is a warning about what happens when America allows a strategic industry controlled by a Chinese company to take root with the help of American taxpayer dollars.

Gotion's Manteno project was announced in 2023 as a roughly $2 billion investment that was expected to create approximately 2,600 jobs. Illinois provided Gotion with a $125 million grant through the state's Invest in Illinois program, while the broader incentive package was valued at more than $500 million. The local deal has also raised questions about how much the community will actually receive in tax revenue. According to recent reporting, Manteno capped Gotion's property taxes at $2 million annually for 30 years, regardless of how much the company builds at the site. The former Kmart distribution center that Gotion now occupies previously generated about $900,000 a year in property taxes.

Unfortunately, concerns do not end with the tax deal. Gotion initially presented the Manteno project as a major step toward establishing American battery manufacturing, but the company's operations have proceeded in stages. Recent reporting found that the facility has been focused on battery module, pack, and energy-storage assembly, while the promised cell manufacturing phase has not materialized as originally anticipated. State records show that equipment purchased with public funding went toward assembly operations rather than the cell-manufacturing equipment residents were led to expect. The state has said that assembly qualifies as manufacturing under the agreement, highlighting the importance of asking a basic question whenever governments offer massive incentives: Are taxpayers actually getting what they were promised?

The situation becomes even more concerning when viewed alongside Gotion's failed Michigan project. Gotion originally planned a massive battery-component facility in Green Charter Township, Michigan, backed by hundreds of millions of dollars in state and local incentives. Local residents organized against the project, ultimately recalling the township board members who had supported it. After the new board attempted to stop the project, Gotion sued. But the project eventually collapsed after Michigan determined that Gotion had defaulted on obligations tied to state funding. The Sixth Circuit later dismissed Gotion's appeal as moot after Gotion acknowledged that the Michigan project was no longer viable. Michigan subsequently demanded that Gotion repay approximately $23.7 million in state funds.

The Michigan experience should have been a wake-up call. Instead, Gotion continues to expand its international footprint. In September, Gotion and Volkswagen announced an even deeper strategic partnership involving battery production and cathode materials in Europe. Volkswagen described Gotion as a long-standing strategic partner, while Gotion continues to play an increasingly significant role in the global battery supply chain. At the same time, America's dependence on Chinese battery technology and supply chains remains a national-security concern. Batteries are not simply consumer products. They are critical to electric vehicles, energy storage, the electrical grid, and–potentially–military applications. Allowing a company from a strategic competitor to establish itself in these sectors deserves far more scrutiny than simply asking how many jobs a project promises to create.

The Manteno story also raises a fundamental question about government incentives. Economic development should not mean writing enormous checks to foreign companies and hoping the promised benefits materialize later. When governments use taxpayer resources to attract foreign businesses, they have a responsibility to protect the taxpayers who are footing the bill. Incentives should come with enforceable performance requirements, meaningful clawbacks, transparency, and serious consideration of whether the company receiving the benefits poses a strategic risk to the United States.

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has made no secret of its desire to expand China's economic and technological influence around the world. Beijing's strategy does not require every Chinese company operating abroad to be an intelligence operation for the CCP to create a national-security vulnerability. Dependence itself can be leveraged. When critical industries become dependent on Chinese companies, technology, components, or supply chains, America gives Beijing another potential point of influence over its economy.

America should not have to choose between economic growth and national security. We can create good manufacturing jobs while prioritizing American companies and trusted allies in industries that are critical to our national security. We can encourage domestic battery production without handing hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to companies tied to a strategic competitor, and we can demand that economic-development officials put the long-term interests of American communities ahead of the excitement surrounding a massive foreign investment announcement.

The people of Manteno are now asking questions that should have been asked before the deal was signed. Who benefits? Who pays? Who is accountable? What happens when a company backed by a foreign adversary does not deliver what taxpayers were promised?

America should not wait until another Chinese company is already embedded in an American community to start asking those questions. If we are serious about defeating Communist China's influence, we must recognize that the competition is not confined to the battlefield or the halls of Congress. It is happening in our factories, our supply chains, our energy infrastructure, and our local communities.

American taxpayer dollars should build American strength, not deepen America's dependence on the Chinese Communist Party.