A bipartisan Senate duo introduced a bill on Wednesday to ban the importation of Chinese-made vehicles and auto parts, weeks ahead of U.S. President Donald Trump’s planned sit-down with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
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Sens. Bernie Moreno, R-Ohio, and Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., introduced the Connected Vehicle Security Act, which would ban automobiles, parts and vehicle software made in China or in partnership with China, as well as other adversarial nations, from the U.S. market.
The Commerce Department last year issued a rule that restricted such vehicles and parts from the U.S. market, but both Moreno and Slotkin spoke of the importance of codifying the effort into law. On Tuesday, more than 70 House Democrats signed a letter urging Trump to block Chinese automakers from the U.S. market ahead of his meeting with the Chinese leader next month. In January, Trump suggested an openness to allowing Chinese automakers into the U.S. market during a speech before the Detroit Economic Club.
In an interview, Slotkin said Trump’s upcoming meeting with Xi was the impetus for introducing the legislation now.
“We are watching very closely what deals come out of that summit,” she said.
Moreno, who touted Trump’s support for U.S. automakers, said he did not expect this effort to be on the agenda for Trump’s meeting with Xi, which is slated to take place in mid-May.
“What we do is we take that model of the [Commerce Department’s] Connected Vehicle Rule and expand it so that [it covers] basically the entire supply chain, but also clarify we don’t allow the importation of the cars, even on a temporary basis, into the U.S.,” he said in an interview. “So we are hermetically sealing the U.S. market from the Chinese auto industry.”
The bill is being introduced with the backing of labor and General Motors.
“By building on and strengthening the existing connected vehicles rule, this legislation puts common sense guardrails on a major threat to our nation’s auto industry,” United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain said in a statement.
Moreno and Slotkin said the bill was necessary both on national security grounds and to protect U.S. automakers from being undercut. They said the Chinese-made internet-linked cars were a surveillance risk.
Meanwhile, the war in Iran, which has triggered rising fuel prices, could be a boon for Chinese auto manufacturers. The nation commands most of the global electric vehicle market.
“We all understand that with the economy the way it is in the United States that people are looking for cheaper cars,” Slotkin said. “People are really, really pressed right now from every direction, and the one thing that had come down in price over the past year was gas, and now that’s spiked up because of the war.”
“But as leaders, we have a responsibility to say, ‘Look, this is a driving surveillance package, it’s like TikTok on wheels,” she added. “We all understand the price constraints, but we have a responsibility to protect people’s security.”
