The ban on connected vehicles, the latest point of conflict between the US and China

“China is trying to dominate the future of the auto industry, but connected vehicles with software and hardware systems linked to foreign adversaries could expose the American people to risks of misuse of your sensitive data or interference by malicious actors“Lael Brainard, head of the National Economic Council that advises the White House, said in a statement.

The new regulation, which will gradually come into force in 2027 for software and 2029 for hardwarewas the result of an investigation initiated in September 2024 by the Department of Commerce and aims to “protect the connected vehicle supply chain from external threats.”

It should be noted that although China, the country that produces the most automobiles in the year, does not sell connected vehicles in the United States, brands such as Volvo, Polestar, Buick and Lincoln do sell cars of Chinese origin in the United States market. Likewise, Tesla, the electric vehicle brand of Trump ally Elon Musk, has a car factory in Shanghai, leaving in doubt how it will be affected by this regulation.

Faced with the question about what we mean by ‘connected vehicles’ and what consequences this decision could have, The Commerce spoke with experts to clear up these doubts.

What is a connected car?

“Said in the simplest way, a connected vehicle refers to any vehicle that has on board an information system that is connected to one or more networks,” the director of Emerging Technologies of the PUCP, David Chávez Muñoz, tells this newspaper. . “These can range from the most common, which is the Internet, to more specialized networks such as GPS, emergency communication networks, smart city networks and even the continent’s atomic clock, which allows time to be kept with greater precision.”

However, the engineer and specialist in ‘smart cities’ considers that if we take into account that the ban is for defense reasons, The connected vehicles that worry the US government are those that acquire very precise georeferenced information that allows the automation of some car functions, such as the automatic braking present in modern cars from 2009 or automatic correction systems on the track (‘ lane tracking’) now present in some carswhich require the vehicle to receive and provide very precise information about its locations.

“This information, in the hands of an enemy, can be perfectly usable for war purposes, so the measure taken by the United States to prevent it from being available to its geopolitical rivals is quite logical,” says Chávez.

“It is a fact that the automobile acquires information and that this does not only remain in the vehicle, but is also shared with first, second and third parties that include not only the user, but also the vehicle manufacturer and the entire technological ecosystem that supports it.” feeds,” he remarks. “And the more access points you have, the more likely it is that that information will be leaked and used for purposes far beyond the licenses, agreements and contracts that one has,” concludes Chávez.

Another fight scene

The measure occurs in the midst of growing tension between both countries, with several incidents related to the technological world such as the ban by the US on the sale of advanced chips for the development of artificial intelligence or the imminent restriction of the popular network social TikTok on American soil.

“For some time there has been a dynamic of economic decoupling and ‘securitization’ of technological issues between the United States and China“, indicates to The Commerce the internationalist expert in Asian politics Jorge Antonio Chávez Mazuelos. “An example of this was not selling them more advanced chips that could have an impact on Chinese technological and scientific development, with a view to not strengthening the relative power of the Asian country.”

Thus, the specialist invites us not to read this ban as an isolated incident, but as part of a larger equation that is the strategic competition between Washington and Beijing.

“In recent years, there has been a tendency in the United States to try to bring back the investment brought to China in the 1980s and 1990s. It is something that was evident during the pandemic, when the country realized that its loss of capacity and industrial base put it in a very vulnerable condition compared to the Asian country,” considers the internationalist. “So, Washington is promoting a decoupling with China in economic matters as a way to bring back that industrial capacity, generating jobs, reducing the trade deficit, maintaining its autonomy and not ceding critical technology to its rival, as is the case with advanced chips. Because let’s remember that these have dual uses, not only for vehicles and computers, but also for weapons.”

It will come as no surprise to learn that the veto has caused discomfort in Beijing, with the Chinese Foreign Ministry calling the measure “typical protectionism and economic coercion.” Chávez Mazuelos affirms that it is very likely that the Asian giant will take a retaliatory measure. “We already saw it in the past when they restricted the export of critical minerals and rare earths to the United States,” he says.

It is a situation that, in the words of the specialist, will hardly change during the Trump Administration, pointing out that the China containment policy is not only something that has consensus among Republicans and Democrats, but that the next US president has already complained about what he considers an unequal relationship between the United States and China.

“I believe that there could be a line of continuity during the Trump Administration, which will try to use the measure as a negotiation tool”says Chávez Mazuelos. “Because a priority for Trump will be to reduce or eliminate the trade deficit with China, a structural issue that seems unfair to him, understanding that the US has lost a lot with globalization by opening its markets and that there has to be a trade that is more balanced,” he concludes.