Trump Says He Would Be 'OK' With China Building Cars in the U.S. Federal Rules Currently Ban Every Chinese Automaker From Doing It.

President Trump said Friday that he would allow Chinese car companies to build factories in the United States, a position that cuts against a federal rule barring them from the market and against the wishes of nearly every major automaker operating here. "If China wanted to come in and open a plant to build their cars here, I'd be OK with that," Trump said in an interview on Fox News' "The Ingraham Angle."

The president framed the idea as a jobs question rather than a trade one. "Japan does it, but they hire our people," he said. "The big thing is they hire our people." He drew a line at a different arrangement that has worried Detroit for years: Chinese automakers building in Mexico and shipping north under the North American trade deal. "I'm not knocking Chinese cars," Trump said, but he made clear he would not accept that route.

Chinese manufacturers cannot currently do either. A Commerce Department rule finalized in the last days of the Biden administration in early 2025 effectively prohibits any Chinese automaker from selling or manufacturing passenger vehicles in the United States, on the grounds that connected-car software and hardware from China pose a national security risk. On top of that, the United States maintains tariffs of more than 100 percent on Chinese electric vehicles. Companies such as BYD, which has overtaken Tesla as the world's largest EV seller, have built plants in Hungary, Brazil and Thailand but have no U.S. footprint.

The remarks landed in Michigan within hours. Sen. Elissa Slotkin, the state's Democratic senator, said letting Chinese vehicles in would be "a strategic mistake." Trump dismissed her warning as a "total phony rumor" and said he had kept Chinese cars out of the American market. The Alliance for Automotive Innovation, which represents General Motors, Ford, Toyota, Volkswagen, Hyundai, Honda and Stellantis, has been urging Congress to pass permanent legislation blocking Chinese vehicles before the end of December, when it fears the regulatory barrier could be softened.

The comment is the latest in a string of signals that the president is willing to trade access for investment. He has repeatedly pointed to Japanese and Korean plants in the South as proof that foreign ownership and American jobs can go together, and he has pressed trading partners to build in the United States as a condition of tariff relief. Whether he would direct the Commerce Department to rewrite the connected-vehicle rule, which his own administration has enforced, is a question the White House did not answer Friday.