A member of the House Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs said President Joe Biden’s administration should investigate a U.S. Navy vendor with alleged ties to a Chinese company.
“What I want to know is, are the Chinese weakening our Navy and Coast Guard from within?” Rep. Neal Dunn (R-Fla.) asked during a subcommittee hearing on May 11.
Dunn questioned Rear Adm. Thomas J. Anderson of the U.S. Navy’s Program Executive Office for Ships and Rear Adm. Casey Moton of the Program Executive Office, Unmanned and Small Combatants.
He said that the Mobile, Alabama-based Austal USA had taken a contract from a company in his district even though three of its executives have been indicted by the Department of Justice for fraud and its Australian parent company had close ties with a Chinese shipbuilder.
Dunn has been critical of the company since June 2022, when the U.S. Coast Guard awarded Austal the second phase of a $3 billion contract. The first phase had been completed by Eastern Shipbuilding Group in Panama City, Florida, Dunn said.
According to Dunn, Austal USA had done shoddy work on a contract to build Littoral Combat Ships for the Navy. These are vessels designed to operate in relatively shallow water close to shore.
Then, last March, the Department of Justice announced that three company officers in Mobile had been indicted for defrauding investors. It is not clear if the men are still associated with the company, but their names are not found on the Austal USA website.
Dunn was incredulous that the company had also been awarded a $50 million contract to build command control units for American nuclear submarines even though its parent company, Austal Limited of Australia, had partnered with a Chinese shipbuilder from 2016 to 2021.
“It should alarm everyone that a company like Austal that has won multiple Defense and Homeland Security contracts has such close ties to the CCP. This is a deeply troubling national security threat,” Dunn said.
