WASHINGTON D.C. — In an April 4th X post, U.S. Congressman Pat Harrigan (R–North Carolina) broke the shocking news that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) owns and operates 80 GNC retail stores on U.S. military bases.
In the nearly six minute video, Harrigan explains how China took control of an American company and positioned itself in the heart of America’s military operations, exposing the U.S. to a significant national security threat.
Harrigan introduced the Military Installation Retail Security Act, a bill he said, “does what should’ve been done a long time ago” to protect America from foreign adversaries.
Below is a portion of Harrigan’s statement:
“What if I told you that there is a company owned by the Chinese Communist Party, independently operating over 80 retail stores on United States military bases?
Let me be clear: a foreign adversary has a physical, ongoing presence on our military installations, inside the wire, with possible access to our personnel and their information.
These stores are not directly monitored by the Department of Defense and they are run with limited federal oversight.
They are independently staffed, supplied, and managed by GNC, a national nutrition and supplement retailer that is now entirely owned and controlled by a hostile federal government.
And every single day, American service members walk through their doors.
They scan their IDs, they swipe their credit cards, they provide phone numbers, emails, and home addresses, they enroll in loyalty programs, some even hand over sensitive health information through supplement consultations.
All of that data is collected by a company that is owned by the Chinese government.
This is not just about names and addresses—it’s about behaviors, patterns, and vulnerabilities.
The Chinese government has the tools they need to build detailed, individualized profiles on our troops, tracking habits, routines, deployment cycles, and even psychological flags—everything a hostile intelligence service needs to start shaping a target.
Congress has spent a lot of time trying to curtail the purchase of land around our most sensitive military bases by our adversaries.
My office is paying attention to land they already occupy on our military bases.
GNC was once an American company.
It was founded in Pittsburgh in 1935 and it grew from a single health food store into a trusted national chain.
That era ended in 2020, after filing for bankruptcy, GNC was sold to Harbin Pharmaceutical Group, a Chinese state-owned enterprise that answers directly to the Communist Party of China.
But the groundwork for that takeover started earlier.
In 2018, Harbin bought a significant stake in GNC.
In 2019, GNC merged its manufacturing operations with a Chinese-backed company that maintains facilities in China.
By the end of 2020, all American assets had been rolled into a new holding company that is now entirely owned by Harbin’s U.S. subsidiary.
That is how the Chinese Communist Party gained total control of an American retail brand, and with it, access to the American military from the inside.
And yet, GNC continues to operate freely on United States military bases through long-term contracts with the military exchange system.
These agreements are funneled through nonappropriated fund instrumentalities, another bureaucratic loophole that values convenience over national security.
This arrangement allows GNC to bypass federal acquisition rules, avoid registration in SAM.gov, withhold ownership disclosures, and escape meaningful oversight at every step.
GNC saw the vulnerability in our system and they walked straight through it.
Even when GNC did register in the federal system in 2022 and 2023, it appears that they hid their ownership.
The company did not disclose that it had a parent company that is fully controlled by a Chinese state-owned entity.
The Biden administration failed to act and the General Services Administration accepted GNC’s registration without any scrutiny.
No questions were asked, no consequences were imposed, and no effort was made to protect American service members from a company controlled by a foreign adversary.
In September of last year, protein shakes sold at GNC locations on military bases were pulled from the shelves.
They contained hemp seeds, a banned substance for military personnel.
That product could have ended careers, it could have compromised unit readiness.
The next batch could be something far more damaging, and there is no guarantee that it would be unintentional.
GNC’s presence on our military bases isn’t just a vulnerability—it’s an open door.
We are talking about the potential of counterfeit products, surveillance tools, digital tracking, and foreign-controlled supply chains operating inside of some of the most sensitive environments in our country.
Every connected device, every in-store promotion, every scanned rewards card and downloaded app is a potential entry point.
And the worst part?
We’ve known about the risks, and we have just decided to look the other way.
That’s why I’ve introduced the Military Installation Retail Security Act of 2025.
This bill prohibits the military exchanges from allowing any company owned or controlled by the governments of China, Russia, Iran, or North Korea from being able to operate a physical location on our military installations.
It terminates existing contracts with companies that lied about who they really are, and it slams shut the legal loopholes that allowed this threat to take root in the first place.
We do not let foreign governments lease space on our bases.
There is no excuse for allowing their companies to infiltrate our infrastructure.
This never should have happened, and we have a duty to make sure that it never happens again.
Our troops deserve more than thank-yous and handshakes.
They deserve better than foreign-controlled cash registers collecting their data behind the wire.
They deserve real protection from threats that are hiding in plain sight.
This is not about trade policy or consumer choice.
This is a national security issue, and the fact that it has been allowed to continue this long is a failure of policy, a failure of diligence, and a failure of leadership.
The Military Installation Retail Security Act doesn’t dance around the problem; it shuts it down.
It puts control back in our hands, forces our adversaries off of our bases, and makes sure that our troops are never put in this kind of danger again.
I urge the Department of Defense to immediately investigate and address the Chinese Communist Party’s foothold on our military installations, and I encourage my colleagues to join me in co-sponsoring this legislation to eliminate this threat and defend those who defend us.”
