Sen. Darline Graham, the Republican Senate candidate in South Carolina, has pledged to crack down on China, following in her late brother’s footsteps.
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“We need to manufacture more here, produce our own energy, secure our supply chains, and stop depending on Communist China for things America can make ourselves,” she said in an August interview with the Washington Reporter.
But her husband, Larry Nordone, has management roles in two companies that rely on Chinese manufacturing, company filings and shipping data show.
Graham is battling for election to the seat to which she was appointed after her brother, Sen. Lindsey Graham, died in July. Lindsey Graham’s hard line on China was central to his reputation as a leading foreign policy hawk. Darline Graham faces her Democratic opponent, Annie Andrews, on Sunday in the race’s only scheduled general election debate.
Nordone, 59, is director of customer service at Cosmox North America and at Birchwood Trading, according to Graham spokeswoman Taylor Reidy. Cosmox North America is a licensed federal firearms importer that sells lethal and nonlethal weapons, and Birchwood Trading sells John Deere-related gift products and other items.
Nordone was described as chief operating officer at both companies in a New Yorker magazine article in August that cited the Graham campaign. Reidy now says it is more accurate to refer to Nordone as director of customer service, adding that Cosmox North America and Birchwood Trading are small businesses where employees perform multiple roles. (The New Yorker declined to comment.)
More than 97 percent of shipping containers that Birchwood Trading has imported since 2013 appear to be of Chinese origin, said William George, research director at ImportGenius, a U.S.-based trade data aggregator and research firm. (It is unclear how much of Birchwood’s overall business is based on maritime imports.)
Cosmox North America imports its gel blaster line of toy guns from a Chinese manufacturer that, until recently, claimed on its website that it had historical ties and past sales relationships with some of China’s biggest state-owned weapons companies. When asked about those relationships earlier this month, the Chinese manufacturer wiped mentions of them from its website, saying that the information was out of date and that it no longer does business with those companies.
Graham’s personal financial disclosure form, which she filed in August, lists only Birchwood Trading as a source of her husband’s income. A financial disclosure form filed with South Carolina in 2024, when she served on a state board, also did not mention Cosmox North America. Instead, the forms list her husband’s income as coming from Birchwood Trading.
Reidy said Graham’s Senate financial disclosure form is accurate because Nordone is paid by Birchwood Trading for his work as an employee, but she declined to specify whether he was paid for his roles at both companies through Birchwood. She said Nordone does not have “an ownership or equity stake” in either Birchwood Trading or Cosmox North America.
Reidy directed questions about Nordone’s work, and whether he was paid for both jobs through Birchwood Trading, to the CEO of that company, Louie Harrison. Harrison also was listed in South Carolina filings as the manager of Cosmox North America. Harrison did not respond to requests for comment seeking answers to detailed questions. The companies, which share a Columbia, South Carolina, headquarters address on federal filings, do not publicly list their employees.
Graham’s spokeswoman did not respond directly to questions about whether the senator saw any potential conflict between her stated goal of cracking down on China and her husband’s role in companies that rely on Chinese manufacturing.
“Senator Graham believes South Carolina manufacturers are the best in the world. She supports holding China accountable on multiple fronts, including for unfair trade practices,” Reidy said in a statement. “Senator Graham will continue to work with President Trump to make China play by the rules.”
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Little was known about Graham, 62, when she was thrust into the political arena after South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster appointed her to replace her late brother. She had spent much of her career working with disabled people, joining the South Carolina Vocational Rehabilitation Department in 2007, an agency that helps disabled people find work, according to her LinkedIn profile. In 2019, she became head of the South Carolina Commission for the Blind, which coordinates state services for blind people.
She married Nordone in 2006.
The manufacturer from which Nordone’s company imports its toy blaster guns is headquartered in China’s Henan province and is listed as Cosmox North America’s top trading partner by ImportGenius. More than half of Cosmox North America’s shipment records between Feb. 8, 2025, and Sept. 25, 2026 — 16 of 28 — show that manufacturer, Zhongzhou Machinery Works (ZZM), as its supplier.
A spokeswoman for Cosmox North America’s parent company said Cosmox Outdoors shareholders “obtained effective control of ZZM through a private commercial transaction” in 2021.
ZZM’s marketing materials and website described the company as a manufacturer of civilian firearms and gel blaster toy guns that also had “military-grade” production standards. Its website also listed “service pistols, modular grenade launchers [and] 7.62mm infantry weapons” among its core expertise and described the company as a “certified defense contractor” with “wartime-ready capacities.”
On the “partners and clients” section of ZZM’s website, it formerly listed Norinco, a major state-owned Chinese military weapons supplier, and Poly Technologies, an arms trader founded by the People’s Liberation Army.
After The Post reached out with questions about ZZM’s website touting its ties to the Chinese defense industry, a spokesperson for ZZM distanced the manufacturer from the defense companies, saying ZZM no longer does business with them. ZZM and Cosmox Outdoors’ websites were then taken down and replaced with a notice to users that the sites are undergoing maintenance.
ZZM’s site reappeared days later with the mention of its own “military-grade” production capabilities removed, as well as mentions of Norinco and Poly Technologies. Cosmox Outdoors’s site removed a tile from its homepage about ZZM but still linked to ZZM’s site from Cosmox Outdoors’ “Firearms” tab.
“Cosmox Outdoors has had no commercial dealings with CSGC [China South Industries Group Corporation], NORINCO, or Poly Technologies,” wrote Rachel Chen, a market strategy director at Cosmox Outdoors who answered questions on behalf of both ZZM and Cosmox Outdoors. Chen said that ZZM “increasingly shifted its business focus toward airguns and gel blasters” after 2021 and that ZZM does not supply any lethal weapons to Cosmox.
“ZZM does not currently have small-caliber sporting rifles or sporting shotguns in commercial production,” Chen said.
She said the websites were updated because the information on them was outdated.
Graham’s late brother, Lindsey Graham, was a frequent critic of China who urged the United States to take a tougher posture against the nation. His sister’s posture is less tested. She has called for a harsher stance against China in interviews but also attracted notice during the Republican Senate debate in August when she stumbled over an open-ended question about whether she believed Taiwan presented a national security issue for the U.S.
“I’m not that informed on national security,” she said.
Beijing claims Taiwan, a self-ruling democracy, as its own territory. Lindsey Graham had urged a larger U.S. presence in the region to deter China from taking over militarily.
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