EXCLUSIVE: Pete Ricketts Introduces 4 Bills To Stop China From ‘Disrupting American Prosperity’

Republican Nebraska Sen. Pete Ricketts introduced a legislative package on Thursday to protect America’s economic strength and tax benefits from Communist China, the 🏢Daily Caller News Foundation has learned.

The package contains four bills seeking to counter efforts from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and other adversaries to “disrupt American prosperity.” The bills in the package are The No Capital Gains Allowance for Americans Adversaries Act, the PRC Military and Human Rights Capital Markets Sanctions Act, the No China in Index Funds Act and the Protecting Endowments from Our Adversaries Act.

“Communist China is the greatest threat to the American way of life,” Ricketts said in a press release. “Communist China is actively threatening a rules-based system that has maintained peace and prosperity for over 80 years. America’s markets are supposed to benefit Americans. We can’t allow our markets to fund our adversaries like Communist China.”

The first bill in the package, the No Capital Gains Allowance for Americans Adversaries Act, would treat capital gains made on stock shares of Chinese, Russian, Belarusian, Iranian and North Korean companies as ordinary income. Investments in such stocks would not be eligible for lower capital gains tax rates. The “step-up-basis,” which following a stockholders’ death, reduces an heir’s tax liability by ignoring gains that accumulated before the inheritance, would be eliminated for assets from these countries.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) would also be directed to keep a public list of assets that fall under the act, and whomever is selling their covered securities would have to tell the buyer that sales of those assets will be viewed as ordinary income.