NEW: Concerns Over Chinese-Connected Vehicles Underscore Need for Stevens-Slotkin Bill

Washington, D.C – Following reports that the Trump administration will allow Chinese-owned automakers to continue selling vehicles in the United States, Michigan Congresswoman Haley Stevens is renewing her calls for stronger protections against Chinese-connected vehicles entering the American market.

Her legislation with Michigan Senator Elissa Slotkin, the Protecting America From Chinese Cars Act, would close loopholes that could allow Chinese-connected vehicles to enter the U.S. through Canada or Mexico and strengthen safeguards against national security threats tied to foreign adversary-controlled automotive technology.

“Michigan workers should not be forced to compete against heavily subsidized vehicles tied to the Chinese Communist Party,” said Congresswoman Haley Stevens. “American roads should not be open to foreign adversary technology that threatens our national security and undercuts our manufacturing base. As China works to expand its influence in the global auto market, Congress must act to close loopholes and ensure Chinese-connected vehicles cannot enter the United States unchecked.”

Here’s what Michiganders are seeing about Rep. Haley Stevens and Sen. Elissa Slotkin’s push to protect national security and Michigan manufacturing:

Fox 2 News:  Michigan lawmakers push for bill to ban Chinese-made cars

• Senator Elissa Slotkin and Congresswoman Haley Stevens talking about bipartisan legislation to make sure that Chinese EV car companies can’t just dump cars here for two reasons: one, it’s bad for our security, our cybersecurity, because those cars can take pictures of sensitive places all across the country, but also, because of our economy.
• Senator Slotkin: “Everyone says American cars collect the same information. Yes, but they’re also American companies that are subject to American laws. The Chinese Communist Party is not.”
• Senator Slotkin: “They cheat. They subsidize their cars so that they’re super cheap. They come into a market, like Michigan, they undersell everybody and destroy the local industry, and we’ve got 500,000 jobs here in Michigan with the auto industry.”
• “We’ve got to push on these bills and wake up our colleagues across the country to the needs of the industrial Midwest, to the Michigan manufacturing moment that we find ourselves in. So goes Michigan, so goes the country.”

Fox 2 News: Discussing the push to ban Chinese vehicles in American market

• Senator Slotkin: “It’s just banning Chinese cars from coming over our bridges and tunnels and over our Southern border.”
• Senator Slotkin: “We’re just seeing the Chinese industry purposefully floods countries like Mexico, like Germany, and completely destroy the local industry.”
• “And they’re not playing by our trade rules, which is the biggest problem. This is a quarter of a century of China being in the World Trade Organization and exploiting open free market capitalism to the gain of their Chinese Communist Party.”
• “[Donald Trump] campaigned on saying that he was going to take on China, that he was going to be tough on China. And instead, as Senator Slotkin just mentioned, he started a trade war with Canada. We in Michigan have all paid the price for that.”

The Detroit News: Slotkin, Stevens seek ban on Chinese vehicles, even for day trips

By: Grant Schwab

• Democratic U.S. Sen. Elissa Slotkin and U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens announced a joint effort Wednesday to ban all entry of Chinese nameplate vehicles from Canada and Mexico into the United States, even for temporary visits to border cities in states like Michigan, California and Texas.
• Senator Elissa Slotkin: "I've called them surveillance packages on wheels. What's to stop them from taking full-motion video, or LiDAR geolocation on our sensitive infrastructure sites, our military bases, and seeing the geolocation of individual leaders who are driving in these things?"
• "We have to recognize that state-owned enterprises that exploit open, free-market capitalism and our industrial sector are a real danger to the United States and to Michigan's manufacturing base."
• "I'm not going to allow Michigan, as one of just a handful of states in the country whose central economic driver is manufacturing, to get steamrolled by bad trade practices. We've got to put Michigan first."

WJR: U.S. Sen. Elissa Slotkin and Congresswoman Haley Stevens join Chris Renwick and Lloyd Jackson live at the Mackinac Policy Conference to discuss the ban they’re seeking on Chinese vehicles, even for temporary entry

By: Chris Renwick & Lloyd Jackson

• “We’re taking a step to address the national security consideration with Chinese technologies and automobiles, and also the economic point of this.”
• “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.”
• “I’ve spoken to the Canadian Ambassador about the need for us to protect our borders, codify trade rules and laws so that we aren’t exploited. Because what China does is they exploit the free market at the expense of all of our jobs. They do not play by the rules; they never have.”
• Senator Slotkin: “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, right. And all of that data that the car is collecting is being sent straight back to Beijing.”

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