South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem (R) demanded an immediate review of all the state’s investments to determine if any taxpayer dollars currently invested pose a national security risk, explicitly naming China.
Tasking the state’s Investment Council to finish the review in seven days, she hopes to find out if South Dakotans’ taxpayer dollars are investing in anything that could possibly cause a national security risk.
“South Dakotans deserve to know if their taxpayer dollars are being invested to benefit the Chinese Communist Party,” Noem said in a statement. The Republican governor added:
The Investment Council has ensured that South Dakota has the best-funded pension in the country. But it is not possible to make good deals with bad people. If this review shows that such investment is taking place, then the Investment Council should propose alternative investment options.
Noem’s investigation into the state’s investments, aimed at China, comes roughly one week after the governor signed an executive order banning the Chinese social media app TikTok from state government devices.
In recent months, there has been a push from Democrat and Republican public officials to take and/or call for action against the Chinese social media app over concerns that it could surveil Americans.
Recently, Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Commissioner Brendan Carr, one of the two Republican commissioners, called the United States to get rid of the app over privacy concerns, while Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) also claimed, “Donald Trump was right” in wanting to ban the app.
In 2020, under former President Donald Trump, the administration tried to ban TikTok, but it resulted in the Chinese social media app’s parent company divesting the platform to an American company, as previously noted by Breitbart News.
Jacob Bliss is a reporter for Breitbart News. Write to him at jbliss@breitbart.com or follow him on Twitter @JacobMBliss.
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