Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz’s China tourism company, Educational Travel Adventures, Inc., was dissolved by the state of Nebraska in 1998 after he failed to pay $26 in business operating taxes. The for-profit enterprise catered to student groups seeking to travel to communist China and was co-founded by Walz and his wife Gwen in 1995. Despite the company’s dissolution, Walz continued organizing student tours of China, including at least two trips in 1998 and 2001. In 2002, he founded another entity with the same name in Minnesota, which he highlighted during his 2006 run for Congress.
In 2008, Walz reinstated Educational Travel Adventures in Nebraska after paying $235 worth of back taxes and interest. After the company was once again in good standing, Walz quickly moved to dissolve it. House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) raised concerns about Walz’s travel company last month, demanding information from the FBI about his interactions with Chinese entities and officials, as well as any advice the FBI may have given to Walz about US political figures being targeted by or recruited for CCP influence operations.
Walz also has ties to China through his time as a visiting fellow and lecturer on international relations at the state-run Macau Polytechnic University until at least 2007. Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) asked the Pentagon to investigate this association and inform Congress about whether Walz complied with foreign travel reporting requirements during his numerous trips to China, some of which took place while he was a senior-ranking member of the Minnesota National Guard.
