Like the existing Commerce regulations, the bill would create a mechanism by which OEMs can apply for authorization “to allow otherwise prohibited vehicles to enter the US.”

“Specific authorizations could only be granted under strict conditions, with both transparency and congressional oversight,” the bill says. Customs and Border Protection would have 90 days to implement the rules, “including [generating] a list of prohibited vehicles.”

“We’re gonna be aggressive here because Michigan jobs are on the line, but also so is national security. So close our border to Chinese vehicles and Chinese technology in the vehicles, even for day trips. That’s how aggressive we believe we need to be right now,” Stevens said while speaking at a policy conference.

Her partner in the legislation went much further. “They can certainly come across the border, drive up to Selfridge Air Force base, take some video with the car. The car is a traveling surveillance package. And all of that data that the car is collecting is being sent straight back to Beijing,” Slotkin said.

Sen. Slotkin had previously partnered with Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio), a former car dealer, on the Connected Vehicle Security Act of 2026, which appears to have the same aims—keeping Chinese-made or Chinese-badged cars out of the US.

“This is an economic security issue and a national security issue, and we must prevent these vehicles from driving over our border and into our communities,” said Senator Slotkin. “They’re surveillance packages on wheels—fully capable of geolocating individual drivers, collecting full-motion video, and mapping sensitive infrastructure sites, including our military. This bill builds on my bipartisan Connected Vehicle Security Act of 2026 and bans fully finished Chinese vehicles from driving over in any capacity, even just for the day.”

In 2021, China barred Teslas from its military bases and other sensitive sites but rescinded the ban recently after Tesla began complying with Chinese data security laws that, among other things, require automakers to hand user data to the Chinese government. More recently, both the UK and Poland have banned Chinese-linked connected cars from parking near sensitive military installations.

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The CRD alleged that “Black workers were relegated to labor-intensive jobs, segregated, and paid less than non-Black workers,” and “faced retaliation in the form of overly harsh performance reviews, reprimands, and termination” when they complained. The agency accused Tesla of failing to stop the racial harassment and discrimination despite knowing about the problem.

Tesla evidence not enough to prevent trial

Superior Court Judge Peter Borkon said in yesterday’s ruling that at this stage of the proceeding, “the court views the evidence in the light most favorable to the plaintiff and resolves any evidentiary doubts or ambiguities in their favor.” Tesla, the defendant, is seeking a motion for summary judgment and, as such, must submit undisputed facts that are sufficient to defeat the claims.

The allegations include racial harassment, discriminatory assignments, pay inequality, retaliation, failure to prevent discrimination and harassment, and unequal treatment in areas including discipline, promotions, firings, and constructive discharges. Borkon denied Tesla’s attempt to throw out the claims, saying the carmaker did not submit undisputed evidence that would shift the burden of proof to the CRD.

Borkon’s analysis was most extensive on the claims of harassment, discriminatory assignments, and retaliation. On harassment, he wrote:

The evidence indicates that “Of the 240 declarations submitted by plaintiffs, all stated that they heard the n-word at the Tesla Fremont factory” and “Of the 228 declarations submitted by Tesla, 99 heard the n-word at the Tesla Fremont factory.” That suggests that out of 12,000 Black workers at least 339 (2.8%) heard the n-word at work. Tesla’s evidence did not shift the burden to plaintiff CRD. First, CRD’s claims alleges harassment state-wide but Tesla’s evidence appears to be limited to the Fremont factory. Second, Tesla’s evidence appears to be a non-representative sample from the Tesla factory, so it cannot reasonably be extrapolated to the whole Tesla factory. Third, Tesla’s evidence defines the minimum number of Black workers who heard the n-word at work rather than the total number of Black workers who heard the n-word at work.

According to Borkon’s ruling, Tesla asserted that its written policies and procedures and its training and orientation programs show there was no pattern or practice of harassment, and that Tesla took immediate and appropriate action in response to incidents of harassment. Borkon said he “is not persuaded that the existence of written policies alone is sufficient to establish a prima facie showing that there was no harassment or discrimination.”

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Trump-Xi summit: 3 ways the US and China can compete without going to war

The irony for the present day is that the Trump–Xi agenda looks more like the old Eastern bloc’s approach.

In the aftermath of the global financial crisis a few years later, economic cooperation between these two countries briefly seemed to attest to the success of efforts at integrating China into a liberal rules-based order.

This kind of G2 can undermine the global public good. It will also test whether middle powers like Australia, Canada and European countries can keep their seat at the table where decisions are made or, as Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney put it, risk being “on the menu”.

An older economic contrast is useful here.

But the question is not only whether US firms gain market access. It is whether commercial wins help stabilise a great-power bargain whose geopolitical costs are borne elsewhere.

West and East

Back in 2005, US economist Fred Bergsten coined the term “Group of 2” or “G2”, proposing a stronger partnership between what are now the world’s two largest economies – the United States and China.

Iran and oil broaden the same logic. If Trump has pressed Xi to use China’s influence over Tehran, he is not simply asking for diplomatic help. He is treating Beijing as a co-hegemon in a great-power bargain based on order for some – the US and China – and exclusion for others.

Reported agreements on aircraft orders, agricultural purchases, investment forums and corporate access may all be presented as signs of economic normalisation.

Rare earths and advanced chips are the clearest example. Beijing wants access to the advanced semiconductors necessary to dominate the artificial intelligence race.

In this light, the clearest sign that a G2 may be working outside the G20 or larger rules-based order is not that Washington and Beijing are talking. It is the range of issues that may be managed, tying together such concerns as tariff relief, airplane orders, rare-earths access, chip restrictions, Taiwan and Iran.

This week’s summit between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping heralds a different sort of G2. On Friday, Trump claimed the countries had struck some “fantastic trade deals”. But anyone hoping for details of such deals – on tariffs, rare earths or Iran – was left disappointed on Friday afternoon.

Chips and rare earths

In the wake of the second world war, the Western bloc (led across the US, the United Kingdom, and Western European states) was united by a shared commitment to a Keynesian global order (under the Bretton Woods system) that sought freer trade in goods while preserving national economic autonomy.

Whatever may have transpired, US–China cooperation no longer automatically implies positive spillover effects for the rest of the world. Instead, in 2026, the G2 appears, at best, to be a private bargain between two great powers, imposing hidden costs on those outside, looking in.

In contrast, the Eastern bloc (led by the Soviet Union) organised trade through what was called the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (Comecon), trading many goods between countries through planned barter arrangements, instead of for cash.

An entourage of executives

The Trump administration has ushered in a noticeable shift in how the US views its economic interests: no longer premised on shared liberal values, but on spheres of influence among great powers. The key question, therefore, is not whether the US and China can cooperate. It is what kind of order their cooperation will produce.

The business delegations that have accompanied Trump on this trip point in the same direction.

To be sure, the ostensible G2 was not meant to replace the larger, formalised G20 group of major economies, so much as strengthen it. Underpinning the broader G20’s response to the global financial crisis, the US enacted an initial US7 billion fiscal stimulus, while China provided its own US6 billion stimulus. This helped avert a much larger global economic catastrophe.

If these are traded against one another, the summit is not about economic liberalisation. It is about whether strategic technologies remain national-security constraints or become bargaining chips in a bilateral deal.

In each of these cases, it’s reasonable the two countries would want to coordinate their policies. But together, they point to a new global order where two superpowers increasingly call the shots in their own interests.

The presence of executives such as Nvidia’s Jensen Huang, Apple’s Tim Cook, Tesla and SpaceX’s Elon Musk (not to mention others from Qualcomm, Citigroup and Boeing) gave the summit the appearance of a commercial negotiation.

A warning on Taiwan, near silence on Iran

This might calm markets in the short term, but it highlights the potential for a retreat from rules-based multilateral liberalisation in the longer term.

Washington wants rare earths and critical minerals whose importance has become more acute as the conflict with Iran has strained US stocks of missiles, drones, air-defence systems and other high-end military technologies.

In a larger sense, the danger is not necessarily a formal US concession on Taiwan. It is that Taiwan and other regional actors bear the external costs of a private bargain.

Any deal the countries eventually reach on tariffs will likely have the biggest market impacts. But the deal itself could matter less than the optics, allowing Trump to claim a business victory.

The question of Taiwan loomed large over this week’s summit. On Thursday, Xi gave an unusually direct warning to Trump, saying if the issue was not handled properly, the two countries could see “clashes and even conflicts”.

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