Three Democratic senators are urging President Donald Trump to block Chinese automakers from entering the US market — whether through imports from other North American countries or by establishing production domestically.
In a letter sent to the White House last week, the senators warned that allowing Chinese automakers in would create an “insurmountable economic advantage” that American automakers could not overcome, and a national security risk “that could never be reversed.”
According to the senators, “while a new plant opened by a Chinese automaker in the United States may create some assembly and temporary construction jobs, that small number of jobs will not make up for the lasting job loss,” the letter stated.
The letter was signed by Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, and Chuck Schumer of New York — the latter serving as the Senate Minority Leader.
Schumer served as Majority Leader from 2021 to 2025, when Democrats held the chamber.
Slotkin, a former national security official, sits on the Armed Services Committee, where she has focused on defense manufacturing and countering China, while Baldwin’s work has been centering on labor and education policy.
Trade Tensions
The letter comes as trade pressures rise in North America, ahead of the renegotiation of the US-Mexico-Canada (Free Trade) Agreement (or USMCA).
Recent tensions between the US and Canada have been tainting the deal, as uncertainty around Chinese automakers entering the continent increases following the recent Canada-China trade deal.
Earlier this year, the Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney announced that Ottawa will allow up to 49,000 Chinese EVs to enter the country per year with a lower tariff of 6.1%.
The figures represent a sharp drop from the 100% duty imposed in late 2024 by former PM Justin Trudeau, mirroring the neighboring country’s moves.
Under former President Joe Biden, the US tariff on Chinese EVs was quadrupled to 100%.
The Trump Administration has maintained the rate alongside its own broader tariff measures imposed over the past year.
Biden also imposed regulations that banned Chinese automakers from selling passenger vehicles in the United States, citing national security concerns over connected vehicles’ ability to collect sensitive data on American drivers.
The restrictions have the strong backing of US carmakers and industry groups, many of which have also opposed Canada’s recent trade agreement with China.
In reaction to the deal, Detroit automaker General Motors’ CEO Mary Barra said it posed a risk to “protecting jobs and national security” on the continent.
“I can’t explain why the decision was made in Canada,” Barra said during an internal meeting with employees, according to The Wall Street Journal. “It becomes a very slippery slope.”
White House Reaction
Asked for comment, the White House said that “while the administration is always working to secure more investment into America’s industrial resurgence, any notion that we would ever compromise our national security to do so is baseless and false,” Reuters reported.
The letter from the senators comes just months after Trump said, during a visit to Detroit, that Chinese automakers could enter the US if they set up domestic production.
“If they want to come in and build a plant and hire you and hire your friends and your neighbors, that’s great, I love that,” he told the Detroit Economic Club in January.
During his speech, Trump referred to the 25% tariff on vehicles and auto parts imported as “one of the biggest reasons” for a successful economy, and that they were specifically helping Michigan.
“The Trump tariffs have delivered us trillions of dollars of new investment,” the President stated, highlighting “unprecedented new partnerships on new minerals, rare earths, defense and artificial intelligence and historical levels of foreign military sales.”
“I am standing up for the American autoworker like no president has stood up before,” Trump added.
At the same time, US automakers are grappling with declining sales and the need to restructure their EV businesses after Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” eliminated federal EV tax credits late last year.
The bill was approved by the US House of Representatives and later reviewed by the Senate, which anticipated the deadline to September 30 from the end of the year.
Since then, Detroit automaker Ford Motor Co.’s EV sales have plunged drastically.
The company expects its EV unit to turn profitable by 2029 — a timeline it has given after reporting a nearly $20 billion impairment due to the cancellation of EV projects in the US.
Late last year, GM‘s Barra acknowledged the difficulty of planning long-term EV investments when government policy swings dramatically between administrations.
“We have to make the investments to get to where the regulatory environment they set. We’ve seen a complete change in that 180 degrees one way and 180 degrees back. That’s the world CEOs of automakers are living in,” Barra stated.
Chinese EVs in the US
Auto trade groups representing nearly all major car companies have been urging the US government to keep Chinese carmakers out of the country ahead of Trump’s planned summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping in May.
China’s embassy in Washington has pushed back, noting that the country remains open to global automakers — including US manufacturers that operate production facilities there — while accusing the country of trade protectionism and setting up “discriminatory subsidy policies” to block Chinese-made vehicles from the American market.”
Speaking with Canadian outlet Rebel News, US Ambassador to Canada Pete Hoekstra also warned that Ottawa’s 49,000 Chinese EV imports will not be permitted to cross into the United States.
“Canada is not our problem with autos,” Hoekstra said, noting that the bilateral auto trade deficit runs at approximately 400,000 to 600,000 vehicles per year in Canada’s favour.
He noted that “to fix the car issue in the US, our biggest threats are from Korea, Japan, Mexico,” ahead of China.
“We’ve got to figure out what we’re going to do with China, because that’s the biggest threat,” Hoekstra added.
He dismissed the possibility that the quota would lead to Chinese auto manufacturing in Canada, saying the volume is too small to justify a plant.
“49,000 cars is not enough cars to build a factory,” he said. “If you really want to build, to scale a car plant, you’ve got to be at least at a quarter of a million cars.”
At the same time, “if you’re buying 49,000 cars that are made in China, that means that you’re probably not going to be buying 49,000 cars that were built in Ontario.”
That assessment directly contradicts Ottawa’s stated ambition of using the quota as leverage to attract Chinese EV joint ventures that would produce vehicles in Canada for global markets.
Military-Connected Companies
One of the companies that has shown interest in setting up local production in North America was BYD.
BYD Executive VP Stella Li has recently told Bloomberg the company is considering building a plant in Canada but insisted on full ownership rather than a joint venture.
The Chinese giant is one of the major concerns for the US.
US senators had previously noted that BYD was among a group of companies briefly added to a list of Chinese firms allegedly aiding Beijing’s military.
“The Administration should move without hesitation to designate BYD and other Chinese automakers as military-connected entities,” the three Democratic senators wrote on the letter sent last week.
Several US auto executives have criticized BYD and other Chinese automakers for receiving heavy government subsidies.
Ford CEO Jim Farley said on multiple occasions last year that Chinese manufacturers pose the biggest competitive threat to the industry.
He has also said “there’s no real competition from Tesla, GM, or Ford with what we’ve seen from China.”
Rivian founder and CEO RJ Scaringe has raised similar concerns, while also acknowledging technological innovations from companies such as BYD and Xiaomi.
Late last month, California Governor Gavin Newsom went further, pointing to Tesla CEO Elon Musk as partly responsible for China’s growing EV dominance.
Newsom has criticized Tesla’s strategic shift toward autonomous driving, arguing that Musk is ceding ground to Chinese automakers in the broader EV market.
“There are hundreds of companies, and they’re all sponsored by their local governments, so they have huge subsidies,” Newsom said, citing brands like BYD and Geely.
According to BYD‘s fourth quarter earnings report published late last month, the company received 12.47 billion yuan ($1.8 billion) in government subsidies related to its daily operations in 2025.
For context, BYD‘s government subsidies in 2025 exceeded its total investment income of 2.86 billion yuan by more than four times.
