WHAT THEY’RE SAYING: Sen. Rick Scott Says He’s a China Hawk. But He’s Made Lots of Money With China-Related Investments

WHAT THEY’RE SAYING: Sen. Rick Scott Says He’s a China Hawk. But He’s Made Lots of Money With China-Related Investments

Floridians deserve a senator who will fight for them – not one who uses his office for self-gain and self-enrichment. Millionaire Scott continues to profit off of his political games, and that’s why Floridians will retire him in November.

Mother Jones: Sen. Rick Scott Says He’s a China Hawk. But He’s Made Lots of Money With China-Related Investments

• Yet contrary to the image he now eagerly projects as a fierce China hawk looking to ban business with China, Scott, a former health care executive whose firm was fined $1.7 billion for Medicare fraud and who is worth hundreds of million of dollars, has a long record of supporting Chinese investment in the United States and personally making money off Chinese commerce.
• A few months later, the Sarasota Herald-Tribune reported the deal with this Chinese firm “could pad Scott’s vast, personal bottom line.”
• The newspaper pointed out that Scott had played a very public role in bringing JinkoSolar to Jacksonville and owned as much as $250,000 in NextEra Partners stock, with his wife holding up to $500,000 in this stock. When Scott and his wife sold their NextEra holdings in 2019, they cleared between $150,000 and $1.1 million in capital gains, according to his Senate financial disclosure report (which lists amounts in categories, not specific figures).
• In 2016, Teijin, Ltd., a Japanese conglomerate bought Continental Structural Plastics for $825 million. The Herald noted that Scott and his family owned 66.7 percent of the company when it was sold, meaning they apparently pulled in about $550 million from the sale of a firm that had partnered with a Chinese company. His net worth increased by 55 percent mainly due to this one deal.
• Scott and his wife, according to his disclosure forms, haveinvested millions of dollars in other financial corporations with major interests in China.

• But such matters did not seem to get in the way when he was trying to whip up business opportunities for Florida or when it came to managing his personal financial portfolio. He’s a China hawk whose nest egg grew in part due to the sort of China-related business activity he now seeks to ban.

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