US senator urges Biden to ban China-made electric vehicles

The Chairman of the United States Senate Banking Committee, Senator Sherrod Brown, has urged President Joe Biden, to ban imports of Chinese-made electric cars to the US.

While other lawmakers have called steep tariffs to keep Chinese electric vehicles out of the US, Brown affirmed that they are a threat to the North American country’s auto industry.

Brown wrote on X, “Chinese electric vehicles are an existential threat to the American auto industry”.

According to BBC, his comments are the strongest so far by any US lawmaker on the issue, since the White House, in February, said the US was launching a probe into whether Chinese cars pose a national security risk.

“We cannot allow China to bring its government-backed cheating to the American auto industry”, Brown added in a video on X.

Brown, who is a Democrat from the car-producing state of Ohio, is seeking to win a fourth term in office in November’s election.

In February, President Biden said that China’s policies “could flood our market with its vehicles, posing risks to our national security” and that he would “not let that happen on my watch.”

Washington could impose restrictions over concerns that the technology in Chinese-made cars could “collect large amounts of sensitive data on their drivers and passengers”, the White House said.

It warned cars that are connected to the internet “regularly use their cameras and sensors to record detailed information on US infrastructure; interact directly with critical infrastructure; and can be piloted or disabled remotely”.

China is the world’s largest producer of cars and vying with Japan to be the biggest exporter of vehicles.