The strength of Michigan’s automotive and mobility sector plays an outsized role in its overall economic success. As vehicles become increasingly connected, software-driven, and data-enabled, maintaining industry leadership requires innovation beyond Michigan’s legacy of traditional manufacturing excellence. It also requires protecting intellectual property, ensuring supply chain resilience, safeguarding sensitive vehicle data, and preserving a competitive marketplace.

The Connected Vehicle Security Act reflects growing bipartisan recognition that economic competitiveness and national security are increasingly intertwined. For Michigan, the legislation represents an important step toward ensuring that the state remains the global leader in automotive and mobility innovation and advanced manufacturing while protecting the jobs, businesses, and communities that depend on the industry’s success.

The Chamber and MichAuto will continue working with federal and state policymakers to advance solutions that reinforce Michigan’s global automotive leadership and strengthen the long-term competitiveness of the nation’s automotive and mobility industry.

The Chamber and MichAuto have been actively engaged in efforts to raise awareness about the growing economic and national security impacts associated with Chinese-connected vehicles and the potential impact on Michigan’s signature industry.

On April 30, immediately following the introduction of the Connected Vehicle Security Act, the organizations publicly endorsed the legislation in a joint statement, recognizing Slotkin and Moreno for advancing a bipartisan solution to address an urgent threat to the domestic automotive industry.

On May 7, the Chamber hosted A Conversation With Sen. Elissa Slotkin, focused on the broader U.S.-China dynamic and its potential impacts on Michigan’s economy. The event featured Slotkin alongside Chamber President and Chief Executive Officer Sandy K. Baruah and MichAuto Executive Director Glenn Stevens Jr., with award-winning journalist Guy Gordon moderating the discussion.

During the event, Slotkin discussed legislation she had recently introduced with Moreno and outlined concerns related to data security, intellectual property, and the competitive threat posed by heavily subsidized Chinese automakers. The discussion generated significant media coverage and helped elevate the issue among business leaders, policymakers, and the automotive community.

In a joint op-ed in The Detroit News, Baruah and Stevens argued that allowing Chinese vehicles into the U.S. market could undermine the domestic automotive supply chain, threaten manufacturing jobs, and compromise national security.

“The strength of China’s auto industry underscores the need for a unified North American trading bloc — empowered by a stronger United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA). A unified and cooperative North American trifecta of automotive powerhouses can better compete with China and their unfair trade practices than any one nation alone.  It is in America’s best interests, and certainly the auto industry’s best interests, to see an easing of tensions with Michigan’s two largest trade partners, Canada and Mexico.

When it comes to the future of the U.S. automotive industry and its critical contribution to innovation, manufacturing prowess, employment and national security interests, Americans need to rally around the idea that having and supporting a robust and competitive auto and next-generation mobility industry is critical.”

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