Within the last week, President Donald Trump said trade negotiations with China are happening every day. Meanwhile, a special envoy of the president met with Russian President Vladimir Putin last Friday.
But while talks go on at the highest level of government, U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tennessee, is worried about U.S. cultural exchange programs with cities in “countries with significant public sector corruption,” like China and Russia.
The state’s senior senator isn’t wrong to worry about the U.S. relationship with the two countries in general, but we believe the need for a report from the United States Government Accountability Office (GAO) on sister city partnerships through Sister Cities International — part of her Sister City Transparency Act — is alarmist and unnecessary.
Blackburn claims that China, specifically, is using the sister cities partnerships to “achieve geostrategic objectives.”
Such partnerships, she says in a news release, “may leave American communities vulnerable to foreign espionage and ideological coercion.”