Michigan GOP wrongly says Rep. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., signed secret deal with Chinese company

Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Elissa Slotkin is facing misleading attacks over a nondisclosure agreement she signed that her political opponents say makes her "a national security threat."

On Oct. 8, during a debate between Slotkin and her Republican challenger, former U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers, the Michigan Republican Party posted an image on X of what looked like a portion of a document with Slotkin’s signature on it.

"She signed a secret agreement with a CCP-linked Chinese battery company," the post said.  "#ShanghaiSlotkin is a national security threat." 

The Chinese company the post referred to is Gotion, an American subsidiary of Chinese company Gotion High-Tech Co. Ltd. Michigan’s government gave the company millions in grants and tax incentives to build a battery component manufacturing plant near Grand Rapids. Rogers and other Republican politicians have criticized the plant over national security concerns.

But the full Jan. 11, 2022, nondisclosure agreement Slotkin signed — part of which was excerpted in the Michigan GOP X post — was not with Gotion. It was with the Michigan Economic Development Corp., a public-private partnership that works on business development in Michigan.

Gotion is not mentioned anywhere in the document. 

Rogers has also attacked Slotkin over the agreement. In both candidate debates, Oct. 8 and Oct. 14, Rogers said Slotkin signed a nondisclosure agreement to facilitate the Gotion plant’s construction.

Slotkin’s opponents argue the agreement covers the Gotion project because it contains a clause that covers discussion of "any potential Development Project identified as confidential" by the economic development group. 

In a statement, Michigan GOP Executive Director Tyson Shepard acknowledged the agreement was not signed with Gotion. He said Slotkin should release herself from the agreement. 

"Slotkin signed a secret agreement with a private corporation (MEDC) that was under an NDA with Gotion, a CCP-backed EV battery company, allowing China to implant a national security threat in Camp Grayling's backyard," Shepard said.

Camp Grayling is a military training camp in Michigan about 100 miles north of Green Charter Township, where the Gotion plant is planned. 

In October 2022, The Michigan Economic Development Corp. said it would award Gotion grants of up to $175 million in state business development money to build a battery manufacturing plant in Green Charter Township, near Big Rapids. The project is also set to receive hundreds of millions of dollars in tax incentives.

Like many Chinese companies, Gotion’s parent company, Gotion High Tech, is tied to the Chinese Communist Party, according to the company’s founding documents. The documents say the company has a Chinese Communist Party committee to "carry out Party activities in accordance with the Constitution of the Communist Party of China." The number and influence of party committees in Chinese companies has grown over the last decade as regulations in China have made them more commonplace, according to the Center for Naval Analyses, a federally funded nonprofit research agency.

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Documents obtained and published by the Detroit News show 13 lawmakers, both Democrats and Republicans, signed nondisclosure agreements with the Michigan Economic Development Corp. to discuss the Gotion project in 2021. Slotkin was not among them. 

The Detroit News reported in 2023 that Slotkin’s then-deputy legislative director signed a nondisclosure agreement with the economic development group in 2022 to privately discuss the Gotion project, after the project was announced.

The staffer’s agreement, which PolitiFact obtained through an open records request, has the same language as the clause added to Slotkin’s agreement in 2022 that covered any confidential development project. The agreement is dated Sept. 29, 2022, a few days after the Gotion project was first publicly reported.

Slotkin’s office said then that it believed it was important "to learn more about significant economic development projects like this to better understand their impact, and if there are ways to help from the federal level," the Detroit News reported.

Slotkin entered the Jan. 11, 2022, nondisclosure agreement with the Michigan Economic Development Corp. to privately discuss two potential developments in her district.

The projects were referred to by code names — "Project Copper" and "Project Zaney Bread." Officials used a different code name, "Project Elephant," for the Gotion plant, the Detroit News reported.

Bridge Michigan, a local nonprofit news site, reported in February state officials referred to a semiconductor manufacturing plant from Micron, a Boise-Idaho based American company, as Project Copper. The Detroit News said Project Zaney Bread was a joint project involving an electric vehicle plant by Detroit-based General Motors Co. and a battery factory by South Korean LG Energy Solution. 

On Dec. 13, 2022, nearly three months after the Gotion project became public, Slotkin signed an amendment that broadly extended her confidentiality agreement to other projects the economic development group was working on.

Rogers’ campaign previously pointed us to a Foreign Agents Registration Act filing by Gotion that showed it had talked with the Michigan Economic Development Corp. and other lawmakers after the project was announced. 

The filings showed that negotiations between Gotion and the development group continued into 2023. They did not mention Slotkin, though. 

We asked the Michigan Economic Development Corp. whether Slotkin’s contract covered the Gotion project and whether she or her staff members had  discussed the project before or after it was announced. 

Otie McKinley, the group’s spokesperson, said Slotkin "does have an NDA with the (Michigan Economic Development Corp.) that covers development projects," but provided no other details.

The Michigan GOP said Slotkin "signed a secret agreement with a CCP-linked Chinese battery company." 

Slotkin did not sign a nondisclosure agreement with Gotion, a subsidiary of a Chinese electric vehicle battery company. The agreement the state Republicans pointed to for evidence does not mention Gotion and Gotion is not a party to the agreement.

We rate this claim False.