CLARKSVILLE, TN (CLARKSVILLE NOW) – While at an event endorsing Matt Van Epps to replace him in Congress on Friday, former Rep. Mark Green also provided constituents more information on why he resigned from his elected position.
Green, a Republican who has represented U.S. House District 7 since 2019 and was chair of the Homeland Security Committee, announced June 9 that he is going back into the private sector. He said in a July 4 farewell video that he will be starting his own company, and it is an initiative designed to help America compete against China.
Existential threat to United States
Before Green addressed his support of Van Epps, he told those in attendance that he wanted to address the elephant in the room.
“One of the things I learned in Congress, that is an existential threat to the United States of America, is communist China,” Green said on Friday. “We’re in a battle right now for the future world order. If an American company doesn’t do it, a Chinese company will. The Chinese realized a long time ago that this was a battle for alliances.
“All the way through history, the great battles followed when there was an alignment of two poles. After war there would be exhaustion, and everybody would try to be everybody’s friend, and the peace treaties that would end those wars made everybody equal, but it never lasted very long. Big countries would be doing what big countries do, and little countries would line up for their own security, and it would turn into a bipolar structure to the world order, and there would be war.”
‘This is how we win the battle against China’
Green said the world’s current unipolar moment, following the end of the Cold War, is now dissolving.
“There is an emergence of a bipolar world. It is a battle of alliances now, and we win that with good governance, but we also win by addicting other countries to our businesses,” he said. “American companies that come in there and do business in those countries, in place of China and Chinese businesses, that wins us those alliances.”
Green said that with all of this in mind, a window opened for him to start a company to do exactly that: compete with China while also growing U.S. partnerships and alliances.
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Prosimos: Global Business Development
He told Clarksville Now on Monday that the company is called Prosimos. The company is now operational, and its website is active. It states, “Prosimos is a global business development and strategy firm dedicated to architecting strategic growth at the intersection of markets, enterprises, governments and capital.”
Green said he is the owner of the company, and the headquarters location has not yet been decided.
“I’ve got a Tennessee concrete manufacturer that we’re taking to a South American country; I’ve got a poultry company that we’re taking to a South American country. All of their eggs will come from Tennessee,” Green said Friday. “That’s how we win alliances, and we win this battle with China. So, I did something, the ‘big beautiful bill’ was passed, and I made the break.
“Now you know why I left Congress; I still have a flag in my rucksack,” he said with some emotion. “But this is how we win the battle against China. … Keeping countries from falling into the Chinese orbit will save the world order and save us for freedom.”
Chris Smith contributed to this report.