WASHINGTON – A Chinese pharmaceutical company secured a significant victory against an American startup by employing a lobbying firm with close ties to Donald Trump Jr., according to federal documents reviewed by news outlets.
Grand Pharmaceutical Group hired Checkmate, a lobbying company led by Ches McDowell, who maintains a personal friendship and business relationship with the former president’s eldest son. The Chinese firm paid $30,000 for two weeks of lobbying work in December.
The lobbying effort helped Grand Pharma’s attorney secure a crucial meeting with Chris Pilkerton, who heads the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. (CFIUS), in early January. During that meeting, the lawyer contended the dispute was purely commercial without national security concerns, sources familiar with the discussion revealed.
By the end of January, CFIUS denied Minnesota-based FastWave’s petition for a national security review of Grand Pharma’s investment, citing reasons unrelated to national security matters. FastWave had only managed to arrange calls with lower-level CFIUS staff members during the same period.
The rejection has brought FastWave to the edge of financial collapse, the company informed CFIUS officials.
While it remains unclear whether Checkmate’s lobbying directly influenced the CFIUS determination, the situation has raised eyebrows among China policy experts and Democratic legislators who learned of the circumstances.
Tim LaPira, a political science professor at James Madison University, described such lobbying as “very typical.” He explained, “If you want to speak to the party in power, you are going to need to hire somebody that has those partisan connections.”
However, six China specialists and three Democratic lawmakers expressed concern that Chinese companies might leverage lobbyists with Trump administration connections to gain influence.
Michael Sobolik from the Hudson Institute, a conservative research organization, characterized the situation critically. He stated that if a Chinese company can lobby the U.S. government into supporting it against an American firm on national security issues, “that is the height of the swamp.”
The White House dismissed such criticism. Spokesman Kush Desai said, “Nothing has changed with CFIUS’s diligence, investigation, or enforcement operations, which continue to robustly and vigilantly safeguard America’s national security interests.” He called any suggestion that the Trump administration would compromise CFIUS at special interests’ request “categorically false.”
McDowell, who leads Checkmate, has appeared in social media photographs hunting alongside Trump Jr. and co-owns property with him. A Checkmate representative clarified that while McDowell appears on Grand Pharma’s lobbying records, he didn’t personally handle the matter.
Grand Pharma’s lawyer, Jeff Bialos, characterized the process as “a lengthy fact-based investigation” with an outcome that wasn’t “politically driven.” He described the situation as “a private commercial dispute… being squeezed into the CFIUS box.”
FastWave CEO Scott Nelson criticized “the opaque and highly irregular procedural decisions” from CFIUS, saying they hampered his company’s ability to protect critical technology from a Chinese investor.
The dispute stems from Grand Pharma’s $12 million investment in FastWave in 2021. The American company later began producing specialized catheters for treating arterial calcium buildup using laser technology.
U.S. regulations control shipments of that laser technology to China because of potential military applications for enhancing warfare capabilities.
Initially welcoming Grand Pharma’s investment, FastWave later asked CFIUS in 2025 to review the arrangement. The company hoped officials would require Grand Pharma to sell its 40% ownership or become a passive investor, fearing intellectual property theft and blocked fundraising efforts.
FastWave’s concerns intensified after discovering a press release on Grand Pharma’s website announcing a partnership with Jiangsu Zhenyi Medical Technology Co., Ltd, a Chinese competitor.
CFIUS rejected FastWave’s filing, citing “material misstatements” in the company’s responses. The committee pointed to contradictory statements about Grand Pharma’s involvement in FastWave’s fundraising negotiations between July and August 2025.
FastWave defended itself in February 2026, arguing that Grand Pharma’s feedback consisted of minor termsheet edits that weren’t substantive and came after their July statement to CFIUS.
Notably, CFIUS didn’t address potential national security risks in its rejection.
CFIUS attorney Tatiana Sullivan called the committee’s rejection letter unusual, explaining that CFIUS typically collaborates with companies to resolve misunderstandings and only rejects filings outright for “serious inaccuracies” related to national security.
Nelson criticized the timing, noting the rejection came “months after the underlying statements were made” and that CFIUS “never informed us of these concerns, and gave us no opportunity to clarify or correct them before rejecting the filing on the very last day of an extensive review period that lasted over 200 days and included 29 question sets.”
McDowell met Trump Jr. at a conservative event in 2016 and developed their friendship by offering a superior hunting experience. The two have jointly owned North Carolina property since 2021, according to property records.
Social media posts show McDowell appearing with Trump Jr. and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy holding falcons in October 2024, and posing with rifles alongside Trump Jr. and Eric Trump over hunting trophies in January 2024.
