Does President Trump want to let the People’s Republic of China set up an auto industry within the United States? Or is he just offering fake hope to the PRC government in the days before an expected meeting between Trump and Chinese dictator Xi Jinping?
“Don’t worry, Jim. If that comes up, I’ll just confuse them,” President Eisenhower is said to have said about an upcoming press conference. The issue that Eisenhower wanted to avoid speaking clearly about was the second Taiwan Strait crisis of 1958.
In 2016, CBS News wondered whether Donald Trump was “confusing everyone on purpose” by a habit of not only contradicting himself “but of delivering totally different statements within seconds or minutes of each other.” The author suggested that he was emulating what Eisenhower or any number of other politicians do when they don’t want to say what’s really on their minds.
The Trump angle
Was Trump trying to confuse matters by a recent pronouncement on “The Ingraham Angle”? It’s too clear to be bafflegab: “If China wanted to come in and open a plant to build their cars here, I’d be okay with that. Japan does it, but they hire our people. The big thing is they hire our people…. I’m not knocking Chinese cars” (Reuters, September 11, 2026).
One problem with encouraging the sale of CCP automobiles to Americans is the autos’ surveillance tech, which can send info to China. That’s a problem whether the vehicles are imported or made in the USA.
Yahoo!finance reports:
The U.S. Trade Representative raised Section 301 tariffs on Chinese EVs to 100% in 2024. The Commerce Department separately finalized rules restricting certain connected vehicles and vehicle connectivity and automated-driving software and hardware with a sufficient nexus to China, citing risks that sensitive driver information could be extracted or vehicles remotely manipulated….
[Democratic Senator Elissa Slotkin] has pressed that argument for months. Ahead of Trump’s May 14-15 Beijing summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping, she said Chinese-connected vehicles could collect video, 3D mapping and geolocation data and send it to Beijing, calling them a national and economic-security risk….
Slotkin and Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio) subsequently introduced legislation to harden restrictions on Chinese vehicles. Her office said the bill would block Chinese vehicles, software and critical hardware throughout the supply chain.
Flip-flop soon, Mr. President.
