(DCNF)—A defense contractor that supplies parts for American military aircraft and advises the U.S. government on supply chain security is owned by an immigrant with extensive ties to Chinese Communist Party (CCP) intelligence and influence agencies, a Daily Caller News Foundation investigation has found.
The Department of Defense (DOD) has awarded tens of millions of dollars in defense contracts for fighter jet, attack helicopter and guided missile launcher parts to S&L Aerospace Metals LLC, a New York-based company that serves on a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) council on critical manufacturing. However, S&L’s CEO Jerry Wang — whose Chinese name is Wang Jue — has been identified as an official for multiple CCP influence and intelligence organizations in Chinese government and state media reports, raising concerns about the defense contractor’s connections to Communist Party elites — including Chinese dictator, Xi Jinping.
Through an attorney, Wang denied any ties to “foreign political entities,” but did not deny being photographed at numerous Chinese government and CCP intel agency functions alongside high-ranking Party officials.
“Allowing someone with Wang’s background access to the inner workings of U.S. supply chains and critical manufacturing vulnerabilities is a glaring national security failure,” said L.J. Eads, a former U.S. Air Force intelligence analyst, after reviewing the DCNF’s findings. “It’s incredibly naive to think that the CCP is going to play by the rules when we hand them a front-row seat to our most sensitive industries.”
DOD and DHS did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
‘Proxies For CCP Interests’
While leading S&L, several organizations run by a CCP intelligence and Chinese influence arm called the United Front Work Department (UFWD) have identified the aerospace CEO as a member.
The UFWD’s operations are a “unique blend of engagement, influence activities, and intelligence operations that the [CCP] uses to shape its political environment, including to influence other countries’ policy toward the [People’s Republic of China] and to gain access to advanced foreign technology,” according to the House Select Committee on the CCP.
“Our defense industrial base is dangerously dependent on our foremost adversary. Reports that individuals linked to the CCP United Front are in control of key U.S. defense contractors are shocking,” Michigan Republican Rep. John Moolenaar, chairman of the House Select Committee on the CCP, told the DCNF. “No entity or individual affiliated with the CCP United Front — an organization dedicated to advancing CCP interests — should ever have been allowed to infiltrate our defense supply chains. This is likely just the tip of the iceberg, and we must urgently address these vulnerabilities to safeguard our national security.”
Chinese government records and state media reports identify Wang as a “director” of one UFWD organization called the China Overseas Friendship Association (COFA), which is “an important platform through which the UFWD co-opts and interacts with overseas United Front figures,” according to the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission.
May 2019 footage from a COFA conference in Beijing shows Wang applauding Xi Jinping. Chinese government and UFWD social media posts that include footage of a June 2019 COFA assembly in Hangzhou, Zhejiang also identify Wang as a “deputy chairman” of COFA’s Zhejiang branch. Wang is pictured alongside other COFA officials on a dais with a name card identifying him at the June 2019 event.
Photos also show Wang at several New York welcome events for Xi as far back as May 2006, when Wang organized a party for China’s future leader, according to Chinese state media. One photo from the 2006 gathering pictures Wang presenting a statue of a bald eagle to Xi, who then served as the Zhejiang provincial Party secretary, and another state media image shows them together holding a piece of calligraphy.
An S&L spokesperson told the DCNF by email that Wang has not belonged to any organizations serving the CCP or the UFWD.
“Mr. Wang does not have any ties to any foreign political entities,” the spokesperson wrote.
Wang’s attorney, Christopher E. Chang, insisted that his client had no ties to foreign political entities after the DCNF inquired about some 13 photos picturing Wang at Chinese government functions alongside high-ranking Party officials. However, when pressed about whether Wang denied being in those photographs, Chang replied: “no.”
One of those photos, which was included in a March 2011 Chinese government announcement, shows Wang in Beijing with the deputy director of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and other overseas delegates attending the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC).
“CPPCC delegates attend a high-profile annual meeting to receive direction from the CCP regarding the ways its policies should be characterized” and “serve as proxies for CCP interests,” according to the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission. The CPPCC charter states delegates must “facilitate implementation of state foreign policy,” “take advantage of the CPPCC as a United Front organization” and even “keep state secrets.”
A September 2019 Chinese state media article also pictures Wang in Beijing at an event held by the UFWD and one of its agencies called the All-China Federation Of Returned Overseas Chinese (ACFROC). ACFROC identifies Wang as both an “overseas committee member” as well as the “executive deputy chairman” of its Zhejiang youth committee.
The September 2019 picture shows Wang in a group photo with Linda Sun, a former aide to New York Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul, who was indicted in August for acting as a Chinese agent. Among other things, the Department of Justice alleges ACFROC hired Sun as a committee member at some point while she was in Beijing attending events with ACFROC and the UFWD in September 2019.
Years prior, Wang and Sun both attended a December 2008 welcome banquet in New York for ACFROC’s then-chairman, Lin Jun, footage shows. The DCNF also sent Wang’s attorney a screenshot taken from that footage showing Wang seated beside the intel agency chief.
Wang’s apparent Chinese government and intelligence ties would pose a national security threat in light of S&L’s defense contracting work, Edward L. Haugland, a former military and intelligence analyst, told the DCNF.
China aims to “leverage the gaps and seams in the soft underbelly in our national security to exploit, subvert, and enable direct attacks on our infrastructure, personnel, and governance, which they will exploit tactically and strategically,” Haugland said. “The inherent access, even to unclassified information, about our government’s security measures, practices and protocols gives exceptional insights to any adversary.”
‘Blatant National Security Threat’
S&L has received approximately $60 million in defense contracts and subcontracts, and serves on a DHS council for critical manufacturing security, according to the U.S. government.
Founded in 1947, S&L Aerospace originally produced bicycle parts, but transitioned into the aerospace industry in the 1950’s, its archived website states. Wang immigrated to the U.S. from China in 1986, according to the New York City Economic Development Corporation, and became S&L’s CEO in 2001 after acquiring the firm with a partner.
In 2009, Wang became the sole owner of S&L, which USASpending.gov classifies as a “minority owned business.” S&L now counts the Pentagon and many of the largest U.S. military aircraft manufacturers as its clients.
Among others, S&L’s website states it produces parts for Lockheed Martin’s F-16 Fighting Falcon and F-35 Lightning II fighter jets, as well as several of the aerospace giant’s military helicopters, including the CH-53K King Stallion, MH-60R Seahawk, and UH-60M Black Hawk. S&L has also won Lockheed Martin contracts for the CH-53 Sea Stallion, according to HigherGov, a website providing government contracting analytics.
A Lockheed Martin spokesperson told the DCNF the firm takes a “multi-faceted approach to assess and mitigate supply chain risks” and complies with “all applicable laws and regulations, including those related to supply chain risk management in our business dealings.”
Wang’s company also manufactures parts for Boeing’s commercial jets, like the 747, as well as some of the Fortune 500 company’s military aircraft, including the C-17 Globemaster III transport plane and the H-47 Chinook heavy-lift helicopter, according to its website. HigherGov’s records also reveal S&L has won contracts to produce parts for Boeing’s F-15 Eagle and F/A-18E Hornet fighter jets.
Boeing did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
However, according to HigherGov, S&L’s most lucrative contracts have come from the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA), which oversees the global defense supply chain for “the five military services, 11 combatant commands, other federal, state and local agencies and partner and allied nations,” its website states.
Federal records reveal the Pentagon has awarded S&L contracts to produce a variety of parts for combat aircraft and even weapon systems.
For example, S&L has an ongoing $3.3 million contract for “aircraft landing gear components,” according to USASpending.gov, and another ongoing $24.3 million contract to produce “cylinders and pistons” for the U.S. Army, a Pentagon announcement states. At the same time, Wang’s company has also won weapon systems contracts for “small arms, ordnance and ordnance accessories manufacturing” as well as multiple contracts for “launchers, guided missile.”
A DLA spokesperson told the DCNF that the Pentagon requires agencies to mitigate risks related to foreign ownership, control or influence for contractors and subcontractors.
However, Eads characterized the U.S. military’s vetting process for defense contractors as a “self-disclosure system” with “significant blind spots.”
“Contractors are largely expected to provide information about their ownership and potential foreign influence themselves, and there’s limited enforcement to independently verify or investigate those claims,” Eads said.
Consequently, even a defense contractor with apparent Chinese government affiliations, like Wang, may go undetected, Eads said.
After reviewing the DCNF’s findings, Brian O’Shea, a former military and intelligence analyst, said that a U.S. defense contractor with Chinese government ties would pose a threat to the U.S. military’s supply chain.
“Logistics would be the key area in terms of an attack vector,” O’Shea said. “Disrupt the logistics, you shut down your enemy’s offensive.”
S&L is also a member of DHS’s Critical Manufacturing Sector Coordinating Council (CMSCC), which works with the government to “plan, implement and execute sufficient and necessary sector-wide security and resilience programs for the nation’s [critical manufacturing] facilities and other infrastructure assets within the [critical manufacturing] sector.”
“[The CMSCC] position not only provides insight into potential risks, but also offers an opportunity to exploit those vulnerabilities,” Eads said. “[A Chinese government asset] could promote foreign agendas, subtly shape policies to align with CCP interests, and even steal intellectual property or sensitive knowledge shared within the council.”
The U.S. government must keep individuals with Chinese government ties from operating as U.S. defense contractors, let alone within CMSCC, Eads told the DCNF.
“Given his dual role in the aerospace defense sector, [an individual with Chinese government ties] could leverage this information to benefit the [People’s Liberation Army], undermining U.S. military readiness and supply chain security,” Eads said. “The CCP would use [such a person] to copy military components, map out supply chain vulnerabilities, steal intellectual property, and even sabotage critical manufacturing.”
“Congress needs to step in and fix this now because the DOD clearly isn’t doing enough to protect us from this blatant national security threat,” Eads said.
All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact [email protected].
Bypass Big Tech Censors
Two Storms, One Harvest
Every food crisis in living memory has been a one-shock event. The 2008 price spike was a commodity bubble. The 2020 shortages were a logistics failure. The 2022 grain scare was a war on one exporter’s ports. Each time, the system bent, adjusted, and recovered, and each time the experts assured us afterward that global markets are simply too big and too diversified to fail.
What nobody in Washington seems eager to discuss is that 2026 is shaping up to be something the modern food system has never actually faced. Two independent shocks, one climatic and one geopolitical, are converging on the same harvest cycle at the same time. Not sequentially. Simultaneously.
Start with the weather. The Pacific Ocean is currently building toward what forecasters now openly call a record event. NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center puts the odds of at least a strong El Niño near 88 percent, with roughly two in three odds it reaches “very strong” status, the tier reserved for perhaps three or four events in the entire satellite era. Every major global model now projects a median peak in Super El Niño territory, and most of them project it exceeding the 2015-16 event, which until now held the modern record. Sea surface anomalies were already brushing the super threshold in mid-July, months before these events normally peak. The atmosphere has already shifted into El Niño mode, and the event is forecast to crest in late fall and early winter.
This is not about “climate change.” It’s about the standard cycles of weather, and the cycle we’re currently in is one that has likely devastated societies in the past. We’re better prepared as a society today, but not all Americans are equally prepared.
Serious households have started doing the quiet math on their own. Grocery bills tell part of the story, and the forecast maps tell the rest, which is why long-term food storage has moved from fringe hobby to mainstream line item in the family budget, with established suppliers like Heaven’s Harvest seeing demand from people who five years ago would have rolled their eyes at the idea. That instinct is not paranoia. It is pattern recognition, and the pattern is worth walking through carefully.
Editor’s Note: Heaven’s Harvest IS a sponsor, but the warnings of this article are real and would be written even if we didn’t have a survival food sponsor. With that said, those who take advantage of what they offer can use promo code “Patriot” for 15% off.
The Fertilizer Clock Is Already Running
While the Pacific warms, the second shock has been unfolding in the Strait of Hormuz. The conflict with Iran turned the world’s most important energy chokepoint into a contested waterway, and the consequences reach far beyond the gas pump. Roughly a third of global fertilizer trade moves through Hormuz, and the disruption sent urea prices up 86 percent year over year by March, with a 53 percent jump in a single month.
The World Bank projects energy prices rising about 24 percent in 2026 and fertilizer about 31 percent. By its own accounting, fertilizer prices ran 35 percent higher in the first five months of this year than the same period last year.
Here is the mechanism the nightly news will not explain. Fertilizer is not a grocery item. It is a time-delayed input. The nitrogen a farmer in Iowa or Punjab could not afford to apply this spring does not show up as a problem this spring. It shows up as a thinner harvest six to twelve months later.
The World Bank’s own food security brief concedes that the effects of reduced applications earlier this season “are likely to become visible only later in harvest outcomes.” Translate that from institutional language into plain English and it means this. The damage is already done, it is already in the ground, and we are simply waiting for it to arrive on the shelf.
Now check the calendar. Six to twelve months from the spring planting season lands us squarely in late 2026 and early 2027. Which is precisely when the strongest El Niño in the instrumental record is forecast to peak, bringing its signature droughts to Southeast Asia, Australia, southern Africa, northern Brazil, and South Asia, the very regions that grow the world’s rice, sugar, and oilseeds.
The World Bank warns openly that a strong El Niño “could disrupt multiple crop belts simultaneously” on top of the conflict-driven input costs. Their baseline projection assumes the Middle East disruptions ease by autumn. What in the last two years of Middle East history suggests that assumption is safe?
The System Has No Slack Left
The comfortable answer is that global markets always adjust. But adjustment requires slack, and the slack is gone. Global cereal production is expected to decline from last year’s records even before El Niño does its work. The UN World Food Programme, hardly a den of right-wing preppers, is calling this the most significant disruption to its supply chains since Covid and the invasion of Ukraine, and its supply chain director put the stakes bluntly.
Today’s supply chain challenges are tomorrow’s hunger crisis.
There is also a political dimension that markets cannot price. When food gets scarce, governments do not behave like economists. They behave like politicians. Export bans, hoarding mandates, and panic buying at the national level turned the modest rice shortfall of 2008 into a global crisis, and analysts are already warning that import-dependent nations are the first dominoes.
The 2015-16 Super El Niño, a far weaker event than what is now forecast, threw tens of millions into food stress across Africa and Asia. This one is projected to be stronger, and it arrives with fertilizer already rationed by price and shipping lanes already contested by missiles.
What Joseph Knew
Scripture does not treat preparation for lean years as faithlessness. It treats it as wisdom delivered in advance to those willing to act on it.
Behold, there come seven years of great plenty throughout all the land of Egypt: And there shall arise after them seven years of famine; and all the plenty shall be forgotten in the land of Egypt.
Joseph did not respond to that warning with a hashtag or a committee. He stored grain during the years of abundance, and when the famine came, Egypt stood while its neighbors begged. The lesson is not that famine is certain. It is that the time to prepare is precisely when preparation still looks optional.
Nobody who filled a pantry in a year of plenty has ever regretted it, and nobody standing in an empty aisle has ever been glad he waited for certainty.
None of this calls for panic, and panic is the enemy of sound judgment anyway. It calls for the same unglamorous prudence our grandparents considered ordinary. Keep some cash margin, know your local growers, and put real food in deep storage while it is cheap and available, because the entire arc of this story is that cheap and available is a closing window.
Families looking for a straightforward place to start can visit Heaven’s Harvest and use promo code Patriot for 15 percent off long-term storable food. The forecasts may yet soften, the strait may yet reopen, and we should pray they do. But hope is a fine thing to hold and a foolish thing to eat.
