American automakers want Congress to ban Chinese connected vehicles. Not tariff them. Not restrict them. Ban them. The same companies that spent forty years offshoring every bolt and circuit board they could fit in a container ship now care deeply about foreign supply chains.
The timing is perfect. U.S. automakers can't build a functional infotainment system that doesn't crash when you change the radio station. But they're very concerned about the data security implications of Chinese software. Makes sense. Nothing says credible threat assessment like a company that charges you twelve hundred dollars a year to remote-start your own f*cking car.
The automakers claim Chinese connected vehicles pose national security risks. They're right. Any car that phones home to Beijing with your location data is a problem. Any car you bought from Ford that phones home to Dearborn with your location data and sells it to insurance companies is just business.
Congress will probably pass this. Banning stuff polls well. Safer than admitting Detroit had three decades to build competitive electric vehicles and spent the time lobbying for bigger truck exemptions instead. Now Chinese EVs cost half as much and the only move left is to make them illegal.
This is protectionism with a thin coat of national security paint. The kind of policy that sounds tough until you remember your iPhone was assembled in Shenzhen and your legislator's campaign was funded by a guy who owns seventeen factories in Guangdong.
The retail trader watching this thinks it's bullish for American auto stocks. He's wrong. The guy who needs protection from competition rarely beats the guy he's hiding from.
Photo by Udayaditya Barua on Unsplash
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