It’s an election year, and that means politicians are putting in extra work to pander to special interest groups they think will help them cross the finish line. If you’re looking to be elected in Michigan, there aren’t many interests more special than the automotive industry, and a good way to get the industry on your side is by going after the thing it fears the most: China.
Now, if a pair of lawmakers get their way, Chinese-badged vehicles wouldn’t just be restricted from sale or import in the US, they’d also be banned from entering the country, even for a simple day trip from Canada or Mexico.
Moves to protect the US auto industry are nothing new, and they’re popular across party lines. Former President Biden added an additional 100 percent import tariff on all Chinese-made cars during his term and then had the Department of Commerce draw up new rules—later implemented by the Trump administration—that banned the import of connected cars manufactured by companies owned by or with links to the Chinese government, starting in 2027.
It’s possible to get authorization under those rules to import connected cars; last month, Volvo Cars got such permission to import its EX60, which would still have fallen foul of the regulations despite being built in Sweden, thanks to Volvo being part-owned by Zhejiang Geely Holding. (Geely also owns Polestar, which is seeking authorization for its own EVs, as well as Zeekr, which will be supplying Waymo with electric minivans to convert into robotaxis.)
But those rules don’t go far enough for Senator Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) or Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.), who are introducing the Protecting America from Chinese Cars Act. Should it pass, the bill would ban connected cars built or designed in China (and other adversarial nations like Russia) from entering the country, including any connected cars built elsewhere by a Chinese company or by any firm in which Chinese companies own more than 15 percent.
Like the existing Commerce regulations, the bill would create a mechanism by which OEMs can apply for authorization “to allow otherwise prohibited vehicles to enter the US.”
“Specific authorizations could only be granted under strict conditions, with both transparency and congressional oversight,” the bill says. Customs and Border Protection would have 90 days to implement the rules, “including [generating] a list of prohibited vehicles.”
“We’re gonna be aggressive here because Michigan jobs are on the line, but also so is national security. So close our border to Chinese vehicles and Chinese technology in the vehicles, even for day trips. That’s how aggressive we believe we need to be right now,” Stevens said while speaking at a policy conference.
Her partner in the legislation went much further. “They can certainly come across the border, drive up to Selfridge Air Force base, take some video with the car. The car is a traveling surveillance package. And all of that data that the car is collecting is being sent straight back to Beijing,” Slotkin said.
Sen. Slotkin had previously partnered with Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio), a former car dealer, on the Connected Vehicle Security Act of 2026, which appears to have the same aims—keeping Chinese-made or Chinese-badged cars out of the US.
“This is an economic security issue and a national security issue, and we must prevent these vehicles from driving over our border and into our communities,” said Senator Slotkin. “They’re surveillance packages on wheels—fully capable of geolocating individual drivers, collecting full-motion video, and mapping sensitive infrastructure sites, including our military. This bill builds on my bipartisan Connected Vehicle Security Act of 2026 and bans fully finished Chinese vehicles from driving over in any capacity, even just for the day.”
In 2021, China barred Teslas from its military bases and other sensitive sites but rescinded the ban recently after Tesla began complying with Chinese data security laws that, among other things, require automakers to hand user data to the Chinese government. More recently, both the UK and Poland have banned Chinese-linked connected cars from parking near sensitive military installations.
