Hunter Biden’s company helped China get electric car mineral: report

Hunter Biden’s investment company helped broker a 2016 deal that gave a Chinese state-backed company control of a massive African mine rich in cobalt – a mineral essential for the production of electric car batteries.

The agreement, first reported by the Washington Free Beacon during the 2020 presidential campaign, was put in the spotlight by the New York Times on Saturday as Congress approaches approving President Biden’s $ 2 trillion social spending plan, which earns billions of dollars to promote electricity vehicle.

In 2016, an investment company founded by Hunter Biden and several Chinese partners was cut into a $ 3.8 billion complex transaction that transferred 80 percent of Congo̵[ads1]7;s Think Fungurum mine from a US company to Beijing-backed China Molybdenum.

President Joe Biden, Hunter Biden’s father, was the sitting vice president when the agreement was signed.

The mine is one of the world’s largest sources of cobalt – and China’s control of the mineral “presents a critical vulnerability to the future of the US domestic automotive industry,” Biden’s White House reported in June.

A White House spokesman said Joe Biden was unaware of his son’s involvement in the sale, the Times reported.