USA · 24 September, 2026 · 2 min read
Bernie Moreno And Elissa Slotkin Delay Fast-Track Vote On Permanent Chinese Car Ban
Moreno and Slotkin delayed fast-track vote on permanent Chinese car ban to next week. They paused to gain support of a lone holdout senator.
Opinion outlet argues for competition under enforceable rules, not blanket protection.
11 of 12 outlets skipped it: the Biden 2025 rule effectively banned Chinese passenger vehicles due to data..
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One side downplays near-term policy shifts and panic; the other stresses fast competitive devastation.
Senators delay fast-track bid
Republican Senator Bernie Moreno and Democratic Senator Elissa Slotkin agreed on Thursday to delay their plan to use a fast-track procedure to win Senate approval for a permanent legislative ban on Chinese cars until next week. Reuters reported that the senators delayed the fast-track effort because they sought the support of a lone holdout, and they planned to hold talks with Republican Senator Rand Paul after Paul raised concerns. Moreno said China was making nearly four times as many cars as the United States, and he argued Congress needed to make certain that hundreds of thousands of US auto jobs were not at risk of "total domination" by Chinese car companies.
Slotkin said her understanding was "it's 99 to 1," and she warned that under the fast-track procedure a single opponent could block approval. Reuters said the bill has significant momentum, with a House version now topping 100 co-sponsors, while automakers and legislative aides hoped to win full passage this year.
Xi visit heightens pressure
President Donald Trump met with China's President Xi Jinping in Washington on Thursday, and the senators’ delay came as the summit unfolded. Senator Elissa Slotkin told reporters Wednesday that "It's not at this point a partisan issue," and she framed the fight as a question of whether lawmakers wanted to make cars in America. Slotkin also said the issue was about whether the country wanted "a manufacturing base that can pivot when we need it," and she argued that if lawmakers wanted that, they "shouldn't let them in our country."
Michael Dunne, an expert on China’s automotive industry and a former General Motors executive, said even the potential that Wang Chuanfu and Robin Zeng could attend underscored the importance of Xi’s trip for the U.S. auto industry. Dunne said Chinese automakers would "quickly overwhelm America’s auto industry, just as it is now ravaging Europe," as the debate moved through Congress.
What the ban would change
The Reuters account said the bill would make the ban into law and prevent the White House from issuing waivers to Chinese manufacturers to sell vehicles in the United States. Reuters said a regulation imposed by former President Joe Biden's administration in early 2025 effectively banned all Chinese automakers from selling or building passenger vehicles in the US because they could send sensitive driver data to China. Senator Ted Cruz said earlier that the bill would ban companies with more than 15% ownership from Chinese entities from selling vehicles in the US, a threshold that could bar Mercedes-Benz because of Chinese investors' nearly 20% stake.
Moreno said Mercedes-Benz would have until 2030 to comply and could still get waivers if needed, while Slotkin said there were ongoing conversations about how Mercedes could comply. Slotkin warned that if President Trump allowed in these Chinese companies, it would be "the beginning of the end of the auto industry in the United States," tying the legislative stakes to the outcome of the Trump-Xi meeting.