In a blow to wannabe smugmobile owners everywhere, the US is considering a measure which would likely call a halt to their manufacture.
You see, it seems that even American politicians have a stronger moral conscience than middle-class greenies.
A measure has been introduced in the U.S. House to ban imported products containing minerals critical to electric vehicle batteries but mined through child labor and other abusive conditions in Congo, where China has enormous mining stakes.
The bill targets China, which sponsor Republican Rep. Chris Smith of New Jersey says uses forced labor and exploits children to mine cobalt in the impoverished but resource-rich central African country.
To paraphrase Orwell, the green-left lives by robbing Third-World coolies, “and those of us who are ‘enlightened’ all maintain that those coolies ought to be set free; but our standard of living, and hence our ‘enlightenment’, demands that the robbery shall continue.” Especially the robbery of African children. A “progressive” truly is a hypocrite.
Congo is the world’s largest producer of cobalt, a mineral used to make lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles, a key pillar of President Joe Biden’s climate plans. China controls the majority of the cobalt mines in Congo, strengthening Beijing’s position in the global supply chain for electric vehicles and other products.
“On the backs of trafficked workers and child laborers, the Chinese Communist Party is exploiting the vast cobalt resources of the Democratic Republic of Congo to fuel its economy and global agenda,” Smith’s office said in a statement following the bill’s introduction Friday.
Guess where much of that exploited mineral wealth is destined?
China holds a 68% stake in Sicomines, the copper and cobalt joint venture with Congo’s state mining firm Gecamines, following a 2008 infrastructure-for-minerals deal, which Congo now is seeking to review over concerns it gets too little benefit from the arrangement.
Congo is also Africa’s top producer of copper, and lithium was recently found there — also key components of EV batteries.
And by “producer”, they mean “exploitation of child labour and environmental degradation”.
The extraction of the minerals has been linked to child and exploitative labor, environmental abuses and safety risks. In a 2016 report, Amnesty International blamed Chinese firms for child labor in Congo’s cobalt mining and multinational tech firms for failing to address the negative human rights issue in their supply chains.
The virtual slavery of African children means that other, more ethical sources of the minerals just can’t compete.
In a blow to American production, an Australian mining company that had been set to open the only cobalt mine in the U.S. halted construction on the Idaho project in March, citing falling cobalt prices fueled by competition from China and Congo.
Jervois Global CEO Bryce Crocker said the company expects to complete construction of the mine and commission it when cobalt prices recover.
And watch the smugsters lose it when the prices of the precious EVs soar in tandem.
The U.S. legislation would prohibit importing “goods, wares, articles, or merchandise containing metals or minerals, in particular cobalt and lithium and their derivatives, mined, produced, smelted or processed, wholly or in part, by child labor or forced labor in the DRC,” Smith’s office said.
The measure also would require the president to identify and impose sanctions, including visa and transaction prohibitions, on foreign actors who facilitate and exploit child labor in Congo.
The Columbian
How about we just stamp every Tesla with a big motif of a pair of chains, and the legend, “Made with Child Slave Labour”.
That’ll wipe the smug from of the Climate Cultists’ faces.
