A U.S. congressman is raising alarms over a Chinese-owned health supplement chain with access to U.S. military bases, calling it a national security threat hiding in plain sight.
Key Facts:
- Rep. Pat Harrigan (R-NC) introduced the Military Installation Retail Security Act of 2025 to ban companies owned by China, North Korea, Iran, or Russia from U.S. military bases.
- GNC, a major supplement retailer, was bought out of bankruptcy in 2020 by Harbin Pharmaceuticals, a partially state-owned Chinese firm.
- Around 85 GNC stores operate on U.S. military bases under long-term concession contracts.
- Harrigan says these stores could be used to collect sensitive data on military personnel, including health vulnerabilities and deployment cycles.
- GNC did not disclose its foreign ownership on federal contractor registries and let its listing lapse in October 2024.
The Rest of The Story:
GNC, originally an American company, was purchased by Harbin Pharmaceuticals in 2020 after filing for bankruptcy.
Harbin, based in China, is partially owned by the Chinese government.
Since the acquisition, GNC has expanded its reach and currently runs approximately 85 stores on U.S. military installations.
These stores are operated independently from the military but benefit from long-term contracts that allow them to do business on base.
Congressman Harrigan warns that GNC’s presence could give adversaries access to sensitive health information, track troop movements, and even potentially disrupt military readiness through product manipulation or cyber intrusions.
Despite previous concerns raised by Sen. Marco Rubio in 2020 and ongoing scrutiny over China’s land acquisitions near U.S. bases, GNC’s quiet presence on military property has continued without a national security review.
The new legislation proposed by Harrigan seeks to close this glaring loophole.
🚨 BREAKING: The Chinese Communist Party owns and operates more than 80 retail stores on U.S. military bases.
While everyone’s been focused on the CCP buying land AROUND sensitive military bases, the real threat is what’s already happening ON our military bases.
For years,… pic.twitter.com/SHiPLPucE4
— Congressman Pat Harrigan (@RepPatHarrigan) April 3, 2025
Commentary:
It defies belief that a company owned by a Chinese state-backed entity is operating openly on U.S. military bases.
This isn’t about free markets—it’s about national security.
The CCP has made no secret of its intent to exploit every possible weakness, and we’re handing them access to our troops’ personal health data and movement patterns on a silver platter.
This isn’t a hypothetical risk.
The Chinese Communist Party’s infiltration of U.S. military bases through retail operations is a glaring security failure. For years, bureaucrats turned a blind eye as CCP-linked stores harvested sensitive data from service members—exposing vulnerabilities that demand immediate…
— DOGEai (@dogeai_gov) April 3, 2025
Harrigan lays it out plainly: by analyzing purchases, Chinese intelligence could potentially identify soldiers with physical or psychological vulnerabilities.
That’s not just invasive—that’s dangerous.
The fact that these stores can also track mobile devices and collect cyber data is the icing on the stupidity cake.
Military bases are supposed to be secure zones, yet somehow, a foreign-owned business with known ties to an adversary is allowed to set up shop inside the wire.
And then there’s the bigger question: who approved this?
Who allowed these contracts to stand after the sale?
This is either gross negligence or intentional indifference.
Either way, someone needs to be held accountable.
If you or I gave this kind of access to a hostile power, we’d be court-martialed.
It’s easy to point fingers at China, but why should they stop exploiting us when we make it so easy?
This kind of incompetence invites espionage.
You wouldn’t find a U.S.-owned retailer inside a PLA base in China.
But here we are, bending over backwards to accommodate a regime that openly undermines our interests.
Until the Pentagon gets serious about basic security, Congress will have to lead.
Harrigan’s bill is a good place to start—but enforcement and accountability must follow.
The Bottom Line:
A Chinese-owned supplement chain is operating on dozens of U.S. military bases, raising serious national security concerns.
Rep. Pat Harrigan is pushing legislation to ban adversary-owned companies from military grounds, calling the current situation “crazy.”
This is a clear failure in federal oversight.
The U.S. must stop enabling its enemies by allowing critical security blind spots to persist.
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