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Kerry: US Must End Climate 'Suicide Pact' by Cooperating With Beijing

China's 'green' supply chains use slave labor

John Kerry and Chinese deputy environment minister Zhai Qing in 2016 (Cyril Ndegeya/AFP via Getty Images)
July 20, 2021

Biden climate czar John Kerry said in a Tuesday speech that the United States must end its "suicide pact" with China by cooperating with the Communist regime on climate change.

Kerry told listeners that the only way to calm tensions with Beijing is through cooperation on climate change, even as the United States and China compete on human rights, trade, and the future of democratic Taiwan.

"It is not a mystery that China and the U.S. have many differences," Kerry said. "But on climate, cooperation is the only way to break free from the world's current mutual suicide pact."

Kerry's own remarks, however, could stand in the way of such a goal. The former secretary of state admitted to lawmakers in May that Uyghur slave labor fuels green energy supply chains, potentially complicating climate cooperation efforts.

Even as the Biden administration has followed the Trump administration in sanctioning Xinjiang-area companies for their use of slave labor, some Democrats place a higher priority on climate change. A bill introduced by House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Gregory Meeks (D., N.Y.) tucked millions of dollars in taxpayer money into a climate fund intended to boost cooperation with China. Meanwhile, Meeks rejected dozens of Republican measures to toughen the United States' stance on human rights, the 2022 Olympics, and the defense of Taiwan.

Former secretary of state Mike Pompeo said in July that prioritizing climate cooperation with China over standing against the Uyghur genocide would be a "grave mistake" that would bankrupt the United States' worldwide credibility on human rights.