John Arnold Invests in China While Groups He Funds Push Pro-China Policies
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has made no secret of its desire to dominate the global economy. In order to achieve this goal, the totalitarian CCP employs tactics like forced labor, intellectual property theft, unfair trade practices, and espionage. As a result of these and other practices, China is a designated adversary of the United States.
Lawmakers in the U.S. government have recognized the threat posed by the CCP and in recent years have undertaken policy efforts to curb China’s illegal economic activity. These actions have been bipartisan and supported by the vast majority of Americans.
Meanwhile, liberal billionaire John Arnold has a different perspective on the CCP. After a recent trip to China, Arnold returned talking about the astonishing speed and efficiency of the Chinese system and his desire to invest in manufacturing there. The details below show a distinct, pro-China policy point of view coming from John Arnold and the policy groups that he bankrolls.
After Going to China, Arnold Said He Did Not Want To Invest In Any Other Manufacturing Sector
Early in 2026, billionaire investor John Arnold went to China and reviewed their energy and robotics industries. He came back to the U.S. raving about the Communist country’s economic and education systems. On his own personal X account, Arnold praised the speed with which Chinese manufacturing facilities start up.
Arnold wrote in January 2026, “I came away not wanting to invest in any manufacturing business in the rest of the world.”
While Arnold praised China’s manufacturing sector’s efficiency, he failed to mention that it is based on a hazardous regulatory environment, human rights violations, and unsafe working conditions in its facilities. Despite these concerns, Arnold expressed his excitement to further invest in China upon his return. It is not surprising that the policy think tanks that Arnold invests in regularly advocate pro-CCP policies given his enthusiasm to invest in China.
John Arnold Is Personally Touting Chinese Industry and Investment
Following his tour of China, Arnold has spent 2026 touting the Chinese communist economy and touting investment opportunities in China to anyone who will listen. In May 2026, Arnold said, “I had a hard time identifying where the weak spot was for Chinese industry, given that they have a highly educated workforce, low cost of labor, that there is risk capital that’s provided.”
Arnold is using his position as one of the world’s biggest energy investors to advocate for others to invest in the communist country. He says that China “is now on the leading edge, the bleeding edge of technology.” Given his influence and sway in investment communities, Arnold is undoubtedly driving more investment into companies controlled by the CCP. That would explain why the groups he is funding are pushing policies that make it easier for investors to get rich in China.
Arnold Has Praised China and Its Economic Growth on the Back of Communist Policies
On a recent podcast (Invest Like the Best with Patrick O’Shaughnessy), Arnold had no shortage of positive things to say about China and its economic growth following a trip to the country. In one instance, he said that China was a “country that has gone from trying to replicate the west to in many ways leapfrogging it.”
Arnold went on to express his envy of China’s “combination of being able to do things really quickly with a skilled but low-cost labor force” and expressed admiration for China’s ability to “create a quality product at a price that nobody in the rest of the world’s really been able to figure out yet.” He did not acknowledge the Communist policies and abusive practices that make much of this possible, instead saying he “came away incredibly impressed” after his time there.
Arnold-Funded Third Way Advocates For “Cooperation” With China
Third Way, a self-described “champion of moderate policy and political ideas,” has recently advocated for cooperation between the U.S. and China, ignoring the dangerous risks that China and the CCP pose to American economic and national security. In 2025, Third Way received over $250,000 from Action Now, Inc., a 501(c)(4) founded by Laura and John Arnold and a part of Arnold Ventures. The Third Way Foundation received $175,000 from the Laura and John Arnold Foundation in 2024, while the Third Way Institute has received over $1 million from the Laura and John Arnold Foundation since 2020.
In a May 2026 memo, Third Way alleged that Americans just want to “outperform China, not fight it.” The memo is based on polling of 1,000 registered voters for one week in May 2026, arguing that voters want “a more pragmatic recognition that you have to engage rivals.” While Third Way argued that 69% of respondents “across partisan lines” (they did not specify how the respondents broke along political affiliation) agreed that the U.S. should work with China on areas where our interests align, the same polling suggested that 34% of respondents said their top priority when it comes to the U.S. relationship with China was to “[c]rack down on intellectual property theft, unfair trade practices, and market manipulation by China.”
The memo concluded with how Democrats can become the more trusted party on China, where historically, Republicans have held more authority.
Arnold-Funded CBPP Criticized U.S. Tariffs Designed to Stop China’s Unfair Trade Practices
One of the main tools used by U.S. policymakers to protect American companies from China’s unfair trade practices and their theft of intellectual property has been the imposition of targeted tariffs. In 2019, President Trump imposed 25% tariffs on $250 billion worth of Chinese goods in response to China’s unfair tariffs against American products. President Biden retained these tariffs in a show of bipartisan support.
Groups funded by John and Laura Arnold, however, have been vocal critics of the implementation of tariffs on China despite the CCP’s undisputed use of illegal trade practices. For instance, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) has received more than $2 million from the Laura and John Arnold Foundation since 2020.
In 2025, CBPP published a report that claimed tariffs against China were increasing costs for Americans. The group claimed that “[t]he Administration’s sweeping tariffs, meanwhile, are increasing the cost of housing construction and home furnishings, raising the cost of renting or buying a home.” The argument sought to tie efforts to hold China accountable for its unfair trade practices to America’s domestic housing cost issues. The correlation ultimately provides the intellectual basis for pro-China advocates to call for a repeal of tariffs without reforms from the CCP.
Arnold-Funded Energy Foundation Has Deep Ties to the Chinese Communist Party
The Arnolds’ sympathies towards China include funding groups with deep ties to the Chinese government. In 2020, the Laura and John Arnold Foundation gave $200,000 to the Energy Foundation “to support research and technical assistance efforts related to carbon pricing policies in Canada and China.”
The Energy Foundation - operating as Energy Foundation China - is led by President and CEO Ji Zou, who previously served in a government role as the deputy director general of China’s National Center for Climate Change Strategy and International Cooperation. Also known as the National Climate Strategy Center, the department is situated directly under China’s Ministry of Ecology and Environment.
Energy Foundation China’s staff also included:
Ping He, who led the state-run research institution Chinese Academy of Sciences
Liu Xin, who was a high-ranking official at the Beijing Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau
Wei Han, who worked for China’s National Institute of Standardization
Sha Fu, who taught at China’s Center for Climate Change Strategy and International Cooperation
Yunfei Xing, who managed energy development projects at a subsidiary of the state-run China National Machinery Industry Corporation
The Energy Foundation’s ties to the CCP were so concerning that in 2024, 25 members of Congress wrote to then-Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Daniel Werfel asking about its use of its tax-exempt status to promote policies favorable to China. As the members wrote, “Even more concerning is the fact that this group contributed $3.8 million to promote ‘green’ energy policies that would increase our country’s dependence on Chinese minerals and materials. Not only do these activities raise serious national security concerns, but they also raise questions about whether organizations like this receive foreign funding from America’s adversaries and whether the Internal Revenue Service (‘IRS’) is conducting oversight of entities like these.”
In December of 2025, 26 state attorneys general wrote to the U.S. Department of Justice requesting a criminal investigation of Energy Foundation China for potential violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). According to the attorneys general, “EF-China is supervised by the National Development and Reform Commission—an arm of the Chinese government—and is led primarily by Beijing-based, ‘former’ Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials. For these reasons, Senator [Ted] Cruz has called EF-China a ‘foreign policy weapon disguised as philanthropy [and] run by Chinese Communist Party operatives.’ … This state-sponsored campaign to covertly influence U.S. policy from within the United States to the benefit of our chief adversary falls squarely within the Department’s policy of focusing FARA enforcement on activities ‘similar to more traditional espionage by foreign government actors.’”
Arnold-Funded ACLU Wants China to Own U.S. Farmland
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is a staunch opponent of laws that would restrict foreign nationals from adversarial nations from buying and owning U.S. real property and farmland. The American Civil Liberties Union Foundation – the 501(c)(3) arm of the ACLU that focuses on litigation and communications efforts – has received between $5,000,000 and $9,999,999 from Laura and John Arnold and has also received $260,000 from the Laura and John Arnold Foundation over the past five years.
Running a targeted campaign aimed at stopping foreign land ownership laws at both the state and federal levels, the ACLU has argued that “[d]angerous laws are being introduced at the state and federal level right now that use ‘national security’ as an excuse to discriminate against immigrants from China.” In 2023, the American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Florida even represented plaintiffs who sued to stop Florida’s SB 264, which banned foreign entities from buying real property including agricultural land in the state, saying that “the legislation unfairly restricts most Chinese citizens — and most citizens of Cuba, Venezuela, Syria, Iran, Russia, and North Korea — from purchasing homes in the state.”
The ACLU’s crusade against laws restricting foreign land ownership has gone nationwide, with the ACLU, for instance, directly speaking out against LD 2204 in Maine, S.B 17 in Texas, and Substitute House Bill 1 in Ohio.