>>8802848 PB

>>8802912 PB

Time for Secretary of State Pompeo to have a meeting with the Mayors

>Get a load of this traitor

Interview with Sioux Falls Chinese Communist Party Mayor Paul TenHaken

https://kelo.com/news/articles/2019/nov/25/listen-tenhaken-talks-about-china-trip/960956/

SIOUX FALLS, S.D.(KELO.com) – Mayor Paul TenHaken is back from a trade trip to China, his first-ever visit, and, apparently, the first by a Sioux Falls mayor.

"Really went with eyes wide open, not sure what to expect. Just blown away. I mean I was blown away by the technological advancements of a lot of the companies we visited. I was blown away by the hospitality that we were shown…," TenHaken tells Kelo.com News.

TenHaken was part of the inaugural mayoral delegation trip sponsored by the U.S. Heartland China Association.

The mayor's visit comes amid China's many human rights abuses, including in Hong Kong.

"There's a lot of egregious acts that happen in China and visiting there for trade and economic development purposes is not a stamp on all things China," says TenHaken.

notice they leave out the rest of the quote. see below

TenHaken says its important for Sioux Falls to learn about Chinese business and cultural practices to better encourage more Chinese investment in the city.

-It was eye opening. I was contacted by an organization called US Heartland China Association. Their mission is to improve and establish relations between the 20 heartland states and China

-Just blown away. Blown away by the techonological advancements, by the hospitatlity that we were shown

>Q: what does this mean to the city, whats the bottom line for Sioux Falls?

A: As our economy grows in Sioux Falls, I'm seeing from my chair more and more Chinese influence and connections. Look at Smithfield which is now Chinese owned company. Having discussion with several Chi companies looking to relocate here

>Q: did you make contact with companies looking to open in Sioux Falls area?

A: Definitely, one specifically I'm thinking of just needed to start a US presenece and they opened a manufacturing facility in Los Angeles

>Q: In your letter, Sioux Falls should be in the business of creating deeper relationships with Chinese Cities.

A: Chinese Sister Cities. Build bridges with China economically. Tariffs and tensions was the topic of every meeting and usually we think thats just a federal level discussion but theres a lot of things on state and local level that we can do to ease the tensions

>Q: China Human rights abuses question.

A: We also have egregious abuses happening in our country as well and I can point to a lot of things that we're doing wrong also.

Because there's several policies going on, many of which I disagree with on a lot of levels, the Chinese economy whether we like it or not is a critical part of the US economy.

>>8803930

sauce for interview

https://kelo.com/news/articles/2019/nov/25/listen-tenhaken-talks-about-china-trip/960956/

China Daily take

Heartland cities make connections in China

By MAY ZHOU in Houston | China Daily Global | Updated: 2020-01-03 23:56

Four mayors from America's heartland made the most of their first trip to China, building personal connections and learning about a range of business opportunities.

Mayors Jim Brainard of Carmel, Indiana; Tito Brown of Youngstown, Ohio; Rich Carr of Maumee, Ohio; and Paul TenHaken of Sioux Falls, South Dakota made the weeklong visit in November. The trip was organized by the United States Heartland China Association (USHCA) and the China-US Exchange Foundation.

USHCA is a non-profit organization with members in 20 states from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico.

Led by Bob Holden, former governor of Missouri, as well as chairman and CEO of USHCA, the mayors visited Beijing, Guangzhou and Shenzhen.

In a previous interview with China Daily, Holden said that he wanted the mayors from the US heartland region to sit down with their Chinese counterparts to create ways to keep the relationship going and find projects mutually beneficial for the people in both countries.

"We are a nation of great power; China is a rising power. How do we bring both cultures together so we can both continue and both be successful? We are working with cities and states to have them actively involved in this. I believe that the real changes come from bottom up, not top down. After all, all politics are local," Holden said.

In China, the delegation met with government officials at various levels and was briefed by commercial officers at the US consulate in Guangzhou and the US embassy in Beijing.

They visited businesses from varied industries such as poultry and automobiles, along with startups and high-tech companies, such as drone maker DJI. They also met with people in the education sector.

There were discussions about a possible sister-city relationship with Shenzhen's sub-districts, a mechanism to keep the relationship going.

Sioux Falls' Mayor TenHaken, in a statement issued after his visit to China, said that "it is time that Sioux Falls looks at developing deeper, more consistent relationships with key Chinese communities and businesses".

One of the largest employers in Sioux Falls is Chinese-owned Smithfield Foods. The mayor believes that the Sioux Falls economy would be strengthened by deeper cultural and business relations with key Chinese partners.

During his visit, TenHaken said he noticed that US-China trade tensions affect both countries.

"Every business I talked with — from drone manufacturers to poultry processors — discussed their desire to see a swift end to these trade tensions. For South Dakota, our agricultural community has felt this impact more than any other population. The sooner it is resolved, the better it will be for the Sioux Falls and South Dakota economies," he said.

(The US and China subsequently reached a phase one trade deal agreement on Dec 13 that is expected to be signed in mid-January.)

TenHaken left China with a good impression: "The people of China are good people. In each community, I was welcomed with warmth and gratitude from the municipal and business leaders. They are hungry for relationships, partnerships, cultural exchanges, and collaboration that could benefit both countries.

"It was also clear that for the Chinese, relationships come first, and business comes second. Forming these friendships and partnerships with key Chinese allies is the first step toward more economic opportunities," he said.

Youngstown Mayor Brown said he hopes his recent visit to China will help his city's businesses expand in China.

"A lot of the global market looks at the coastal cities and not the Midwest," Brown said in an interview with local media outlet The Vindicator. "We want them to have the Midwest in their hearts and minds when they consider doing business in the United States."

Brown said he found that many Chinese people know about Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati but they didn't know about Youngstown.

"It was quite an experience," he said. "I found it to be a great opportunity for Youngstown to work globally."

https://global.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202001/03/WS5e0f643ca310cf3e3558266c.html

>>8804056

This looks like a planned propaganda op

NPRs Hero Article

How One City Mayor Forced A Pork Giant To Close Its Virus-Stricken Plant

Written by Dan Charles Apr. 14, 2020

Paul TenHaken, the 42-year-old mayor of Sioux Falls, South Dakota, said it wasn't easy getting the world's top pork producer to shut down one of its biggest plants.

"It was tense," TenHaken said. "You know, you shut down a plant like that, it has a pretty big impact on the food supply. So we weren't taking this lightly, making this request."

TenHaken, a former marketing entrepreneur, realized in early April that his city was turning into a hot spot of the novel coronavirus pandemic. And the infection was spreading most rapidly among the 3,700 workers at a pork processing plant owned by Smithfield Foods on the banks of the Big Sioux River, just north of the city center. Most of the workers at the plant are immigrants; they speak 26 different languages.

"This thing jumped out of a light socket," TenHaken said.

Dozens of workers were testing positive for the virus each day. TenHaken worried that Smithfield wasn't doing enough to stop the virus from spreading.

He called the company's executives, he said, and told them, "We need to see a temporary closure, not only to calm the community, but to ensure that the safety of your employees is priority No. 1."

On Thursday, Smithfield agreed to close the plant in order to clean it, but just for three days. Meanwhile, the number of sick employees kept climbing, and TenHaken wasn't satisfied with the information he was getting from the company. The breaking point came Saturday morning, when the mayor heard that the number of infected employees had climbed past 100.

"It's an untenable amount," TenHaken said. "We really were left with no option."

He drafted a letter to Smithfield's CEO, calling on the company to shut the plant for at least two weeks. Before he sent it, TenHaken, a Republican, sent a copy to South Dakota's governor, Kristi Noem.

"I said, 'Hey, I'm going to ask Smithfield to do this," TenHaken said. "You can sign onto it if you'd like. But either way, it's going to him."

Noem, who has been criticized for failing to issue a stay-at-home order in South Dakota, signed on. Later that day, the two officials released their letter to the press. That public disclosure forced Smithfield's hand.

The next day, the company announced it was closing the Sioux Falls plant, which the company says accounts for 4% to 5% of all U.S. pork production, for an indefinite period of time. Other meat processing plants are also closed due to the coronavirus, although none has reported as many sick workers as the Sioux Falls plant.

The list of temporarily shuttered facilities includes a Tyson pork plant in Columbus Junction, Iowa, and one of the largest beef packers in the country, operated by JBS, in Greeley, Colorado.

On Monday, the count of positive coronavirus tests among employees at the Sioux Falls plant reached 350. It represented almost 10% of all workers at the plant, and 40% of all COVID-19 cases in South Dakota.

Yet Smithfield's CEO, Kenneth Sullivan, issued a statement that sounded like a protest.

"We have a stark choice as a nation: we are either going to produce food or not, even in the face of COVID-19," he wrote, warning that closing such plants "is pushing our country perilously close to the edge in terms of our meat supply."

Several industry analysts, however, disputed Sullivan's dire predictions of meat shortages.

"I would say that there's still a lot of meat on the market," said Christine McCracken, senior director for animal protein at RaboResearch. "Quite a bit of meat, actually; pork, chicken and beef."

In fact, the pork industry is currently dealing with a glut of its product due to a collapse of demand from chain restaurants and food service companies that supply corporate cafeterias and schools.

"The poster child for that is pork bellies and bacon," said Steve Meyer, a pork industry expert with Kerns & Associates.

A large portion of all the bacon in the country, perhaps as much as 60%, normally goes to these places for breakfasts of bacon and eggs and bacon cheeseburgers at lunch. Many of those places are now closed, and people aren't eating enough bacon at home to make up the difference.

>>8804194

1800+ words in the Wapo article.

<No mention of Smithfield owned by China

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/south-dakotas-governor-resisted-ordering-people-to-stay-home-now-it-has-one-of-the-nations-largest-coronavirus-hot-spots/ar-BB12zO4P

>>8802848 PB

>>8804211

>defund NPR

yesterday