A South African Tourist Perspective
From my room at The Nutmeg in Wilmington, Vermont, the car park is a nightly display of the full gamut of automotive America from new models to those begging to be put out of their misery – and not one a Tesla!
While Dodge, Ford and Toyota dominate the truck (bakkie) side of things, Toyota, Subaru, Mazda and Honda are firm favourites for sedan and SUV preferences – meaning, of course, the USA is not entirely devoid of imported or foreign brands.
The electric vehicle sits in the driveway of a home in El Paso, Texas. It is not a Ford or a Tesla. It is a Chinese-built BYD, quietly driven across the border from Mexico, a workaround for a market that has effectively shut the door to the world’s most dominant EV manufacturer. This scene, playing out in border towns and captured in viral online videos, embodies the central dilemma facing the American automotive industry. It is a question of when, not if, the Chinese automaker onslaught will arrive on US shores.
For now, the United States has erected a formidable wall. A 127,5% tariff on Chinese-built electric vehicles, combined with a sweeping ban on connected-car software and hardware, has successfully kept Chinese passenger cars off official dealer lots.
This protectionist shield, championed by both the Biden and Trump administrations and codified in recent Senate legislation, is a desperate attempt to protect a domestic industry that, by its own admission, is struggling to compete. Ford CEO Jim Farley’s admission that he drove a Chinese EV for six months and concluded that their technology, quality, and costs were “far superior” to Western offerings is a damning indictment of the competitive landscape. The strategy in Washington is clear: if you cannot beat them, ban them.
Yet history shows that walls are rarely permanent, and determined competitors find ways through, around, or over them. The question is not whether the US can keep its current blockade forever, but how long it can hold out before the economic, strategic, and consumer pressures become too great to ignore.
One guest I spoke to said: “The political cost of allowing very low-cost Chinese EVs into the US market may well be higher than the political cost of maintaining tariffs, having said that there is a growing sentiment to distance the US from Trump economics so tariffs may become a political hot potato of itself.”
The Beachhead Strategy
The Chinese automakers are playing a long game. Their primary target is not the relatively small Canadian market, which in 2025 saw just 1,9-million vehicles sold compared to over 16-million in the United States. Instead, Canada, with its consumer tastes and regulatory landscape that closely mirror America’s, is being used as a “practice run” and a strategic beachhead.
“Canada is the practice run for the US,” Robert Kerwal, director of automotive solutions at JD Power Canada, told Reuters. BYD, the world’s largest EV maker, and Chery, China’s largest auto exporter, are aggressively setting up dealerships and starting import procedures into Canada. Chery has already courted Canadian dealers, while BYD is scouting locations for a network of over 20 dealerships. The logic is simple: building brand familiarity, establishing dealer relationships, and navigating North American compliance standards in Canada provides an invaluable template for a future US entry. As one analyst put it, shifting to the United States from Canada would be like “flipping a switch”.
This Canadian playbook is complemented by a more immediate, albeit grey-market, presence in Mexico. American consumers, priced out of a market where the average new EV costs over $55,000, are increasingly crossing the border to buy Chinese vehicles that offer comparable range for a fraction of the cost. In Mexican border cities like Ciudad Juárez and Tijuana, BYD, Geely, and Chery dealerships are booming, selling cars to Mexican residents and American citizens alike. Estimates suggest that about 30% of US car buyers would now consider buying a Chinese-made vehicle, a figure that has doubled in the last decade. This consumer desire for affordable, high-tech EVs is a powerful force that tariffs alone may struggle to suppress.
The Workarounds and the Unintended Consequences
Beyond the consumer-driven workarounds, Chinese automakers are exploring sophisticated corporate strategies to circumvent the US blockade. The situation with Geely, the Chinese parent company of Volvo, Polestar, and Lotus, reveals a web of legal and strategic complexity that Washington is only now beginning to entangle.
Geely’s ownership of Volvo, which runs a massive factory in Charleston, South Carolina, represents a potential path to local production. Volvo’s plant, currently operating at less than 20% of its 150 000-vehicle annual capacity, could ostensibly be used to build Geely-branded vehicles with the “made in America” stamp that would bypass import tariffs. This possibility has not gone unnoticed by US lawmakers. A recent bill passed by the Senate Commerce Committee seeks to ban the sale of vehicles from any automaker with more than 15% Chinese ownership – a provision that would not only ensnare Geely’s brands but could also unintentionally bar German automaker Mercedes-Benz, which has a nearly 20% passive Chinese investment.
This legislative overreach highlights the chaotic and reactive nature of the US response. “We’re preventing an absolute, total, and complete destruction of our industrial base,” said Senator Bernie Moreno, the bill’s sponsor. Yet, by trying to slam the door in China, Washington risks alienating and disrupting its own allies.
The connected-vehicle ban, ostensibly designed to protect national security, is already backfiring on American automakers. Ford has been forced to seek a special authorization from the Commerce Department to continue importing its China-built Lincoln Nautilus SUV, whose software is American but installed in China. This “complex and opaque licensing process” is exposing how deeply integrated US auto supply chains are with China. As one expert noted, the auto industry “cannot be decoupled by decree,” as supplier relationships take years to build and the Chinese ecosystem offers unmatched efficiency and cost.
The unintended consequences extend to the robotaxi industry. Waymo, Alphabet’s self-driving subsidiary, has quietly imported over 3 200 electric vans built by Geely’s Zeekr brand to bolster its US fleet. Despite the steep tariffs, which are estimated to drive the cost of each vehicle from $39,000 to nearly $89,000, Waymo needs the vehicles to achieve its ambitious scaling plans. This shows that even with a 127,5% tariff, some Chinese vehicles are so attractive or strategically vital that they are still worth importing.
Global Dominance and Domestic Struggle
The wall protecting the US market is also a cage. By shielding domestic automakers from competition, Washington is denying them the very pressure that could force them to innovate and become globally competitive. While American automakers retrench, Chinese companies are cementing their dominance on the world stage.
BYD sold 4,6-million vehicles in 2025, surpassing 1,8-million for Tesla to become the world’s largest EV maker. They are not just dominant in China; they are expanding aggressively in Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia, building factories and capturing market share. In 2025, China emerged as the world’s largest auto exporter, a title that underscores its manufacturing might and the displacement of internal combustion engine cars by a rapidly electrifying domestic market.
This global expansion gives Chinese automakers the scale to invest heavily in future technology. BYD’s new “Flash Charging” network, which can add 250 miles of range in five minutes, is an order of magnitude faster than current US charging infrastructure. They are planning to roll this network out in Canada, creating a technological showcase on America’s northern border that US consumers will only be able to observe from afar. “The market assumes Waymo’s future with the Ojai is a dead-end due to tariffs on Chinese auto imports,” said one analyst. However, the company is importing thousands, demonstrating that for some applications, even punitive tariffs are not a sufficient deterrent.
The Trump Conundrum
The future of the US blockade may hinge on an ideological contradiction at its core. While his administration has imposed the tariffs and backed the bans, President Donald Trump has repeatedly shown a willingness to welcome Chinese automakers—provided they build factories in the US and employ American workers. “Let China come in, let Japan come in. They are (coming). And they’ll be building plants, but they’re using our labour,” Trump told an audience in Detroit.
This “build here or stay out” approach creates a potential, albeit complicated, path for Chinese investment. If BYD were to build a factory in the US, it would bring its technology, create American jobs, and satisfy the president’s “America First” economic nationalism. For the Chinese automaker, such a move would be a massive strategic victory, bypassing the tariff wall and gaining direct access to the world’s most profitable auto market. It would also force a reckoning for American companies that are currently protected by the very wall the president is contemplating dismantling.
This is the crux of the matter. The wall is not a permanent feature of the landscape, but a policy choice. And policies can change. The pressure to let Chinese automakers in is building from multiple directions: from consumers who want affordable EVs, from industries like robotaxis that need their technology, and from the president’s own desire to attract foreign investment.
The Inevitable Onslaught
How long can the US fend off a Chinese automaker onslaught? The evidence suggests that the current blockade, while formidable, is ultimately a delaying tactic. It is a strategy of buying time, not of winning the war.
The wall is already leaking. American consumers are physically importing cars from Mexico. Waymo is legally importing Chinese vans. And Chinese brands are building a presence in Canada, preparing for the day the border opens. In the meantime, Chinese automakers are using their protected status in the global market to grow bigger, more technologically advanced, and more resilient.
Industry experts argue that the current strategy of “just throwing up a wall” is not workable in the long run. It is a policy that protects the status quo but does nothing to prepare the domestic industry for a future without that protection. “The US needs a much more nuanced and more strategic approach,” says China business expert Ker Gibbs, “including allowing Chinese EV makers to invest in the US, build vehicles locally, bring their technology and comply with US data and software rules”. The alternative, as posed by critics, is to risk being left behind as the rest of the world adopts the Chinese EV standard.
The clock is ticking. The US may be able to hold the line for a few more years, but it is fighting a strategic rearguard action against an industrial powerhouse that has mastered the art of the long game. The Chinese automakers are patient, their strategy is multi-layered, and the economic logic of their entry into the US market is inexorable. The only question is how severe the shock will be when they finally arrive.
