WASHINGTON — The U.S. could take “extreme measures” and ban or impose restrictions on Chinese connected vehicles, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said Wednesday. After a national security investigation, an initial ban could be on the table.
The Commerce Department is reviewing public comments due by April 30, Raimondo told Reuters, on an investigation launched by the Biden administration in February into whether Chinese vehicle imports pose a risk to national security.
“We have to process all the data and then figure out what actions we want to take,” Raimondo said, without giving a timeline. “We could take extreme measures, i.e. no Chinese connected vehicles in the United States, or seek remedies,” including safeguards, guardrails or other requirements.
The White House said in February that the trade investigation was being launched because vehicles “collect large amounts of sensitive data about their drivers and passengers (and) regularly use their cameras and sensors to record detailed information about U.S. infrastructure.”
White House officials told reporters in February that it was too early to say what actions might be taken regarding connected Chinese vehicles.
Raimondo told a U.S. House hearing she was concerned about Chinese connected vehicles that could collect “vast amounts of data about Americans, who they are, what they say in their car, where they go, their driving habits.” She added that the United States needs to “take the threat of Chinese connected vehicles and other technical issues much more seriously.”
President Joe Biden has repeatedly said he will take action to prevent a flood of Chinese vehicle imports.
Relatively few Chinese-made light commercial vehicles are imported into the United States.
In comments to the Commerce Department, automakers stressed that it could be difficult to overhaul their technology systems to address national security concerns.
The Alliance for Automotive Innovation, a trade group that represents General Motors, Toyota, Volkswagen and nearly all major automakers, said in an April 30 filing that automakers are committed to developing a framework for information and communications technology and service systems in connected vehicles that adequately mitigates the risks associated with systems developed in China.
However, they warned that vehicle systems “including their hardware and software components undergo extensive development, testing and validation processes prior to production and generally cannot be easily interchanged with systems or components from another supplier.”
The South Korean government said in a separate filing that the Korean automotive industry “expresses concerns about the broad scope of the investigation into connected vehicle supply chains, uncertainties regarding the scope of potential regulatory targets and the timing of implementation, all of which could lead to.” significant burdens on the industry.”
Senate Banking Committee Chairman Sherrod Brown said Wednesday he had asked the trade in a proposal to ban “all Chinese internet-connected vehicles and smart vehicle technology designed, developed, manufactured or supplied in China.”
The Biden administration is also considering imposing new tariffs on Chinese-made vehicles, and officials are under new pressure to restrict Chinese imports of electric vehicles from Mexico.
China’s foreign ministry said in March that Chinese cars were popular worldwide not because of “so-called unfair practices” but because they emerged from fierce market competition and were technologically innovative.
In November, a bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers warned that Chinese companies were collecting and processing sensitive data while testing autonomous vehicles in the United States.