Republicans Push for McKinsey Federal Contract Ban Over Dealings with China

Prominent Republican lawmakers are pushing for a ban on McKinsey & Company from securing US federal contracts after reports emerged that the consulting firm had given policy recommendations to the Chinese government.

The Financial Times reported that China’s central planning agency commissioned in 2015 a McKinsey-led think tank, the Urban China Collective (UCI), to produce research for its 2016-2020 five-year plan.

Michael McCaul, Chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told the British economic daily that such companies shouldn’t receive contracts paid by the taxpayers.

In 2020, McKinsey told me China’s government was never a client. That appears to have been a lie.

McKinsey’s think tank apparently helped the Chinese Communist Party with research for its Five Year Plan. McKinsey shouldn’t have U.S. government contracts. Period.

Read the…

— Senator Marco Rubio (@SenMarcoRubio) February 23, 2024

Marco Rubio, Vice-Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, told The Financial Times that “at this point it is impossible to justify any McKinsey contracts with the US government.”

New York City-based McKinsey has reportedly won over US$1 billion in federal contracts since 2008, with nearly half of this amount coming from the Pentagon.

The 310 page report published by the UCI caused great concern and even anger among US congressmen, particularly for its advocasy of increased collaboration between the military and business sectors in China, as well as its argument in favor of pushing foreign companies out of “sensitive industries.”

McKinsey rejected the allegations, arguing that the UCI was a separate entity set up in partnership with two Chinese universities and that it did not author the research report for the Chinese government.