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Miami, FL — U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) welcomed the report released by President Trump’s Working Group on Financial Markets to address China’s exploitation of U.S. capital markets. Last month, Rubio wrote to members of the working group urging them to address the risks posed to American investors by the lack of required accounting oversight of Chinese firms listed on U.S. stock exchanges, the inclusion of Chinese stocks and bonds on securities indexes, and lack of recourse for American investors who have been defrauded by Chinese firms.
 
“The Trump Administration’s plan to stop Chinese companies listed or planning to list on American exchanges from exploiting our nation’s laws is a welcome and critical step in rebalancing our relationship with Beijing and protecting American investors,” Rubio said. “I encourage the Administration to move forward with these recommendations, and make the rules airtight to ensure these China-based firms can no longer bypass America’s audit controls or defraud our citizens. At the same time, Congress should swiftly pass my bipartisan EQUITABLE Act to make certain that both foreign and domestic publicly-listed firms will always be held to the same standard.”
 
Last month, Rubio announced that he plans to introduce legislation in the coming weeks that would ban Chinese state-owned and state-directed companies operating in U.S. capital markets that support the Chinese government and Communist Party’s activities threatening U.S. economic and national security. Currently, there are a number of Chinese companies, including 20 that were identified in a list released on June 12, 2020 by the Pentagon, as well as networks of affiliated and subsidiary companies — including companies that have been sanctioned by the U.S. government — that are operating in the U.S. capital market system that are involved in the Communist Party’s military, espionage, human rights abuses, “Military-Civil Fusion Strategy,” and the “Made in China 2025” industrial policy.
 
Last year, Rubio introduced the Ensuring Quality Information and Transparency for Abroad-Based Listings on our Exchanges (EQUITABLE) Act, bipartisan, bicameral legislation to ban Chinese and foreign firms that flaunt U.S. laws from U.S. exchanges. . Rubio previewed the legislation in an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal. A one-pager of the legislation is available here. Key Rubio provisions were included in Senator John Kennedy’s (R-LA) Holding Foreign Companies Accountable Act (S.945), which passed the Senate on May 20, 2020.