Trump admin pushes out US official whose unit banned Chinese vehicles
Elizabeth Cannon’s departure comes shortly after the US Commerce Department dropped a plan to restrict Chinese drones
US President Donald Trump’s administration has pushed out a Commerce Department official whose office effectively barred nearly all Chinese cars from the US market for national security reasons, according to people familiar with the matter.
Elizabeth “Liz” Cannon has resigned as executive director for Information and Communications Technology and Services, an office created in 2022 to investigate threats to the supply chain from foreign adversaries, the people said.
News of Cannon’s impending departure comes shortly after the department dropped a plan to impose restrictions on Chinese drones despite the risk that US adversaries might remotely access and manipulate the devices, exposing sensitive US data.
The office, which falls under the department’s Bureau of Industry and Security, also has not issued expected restrictions to address concerns about medium and heavy-duty truck imports.
A year ago, under then US President Joe Biden, the office finalised rules that effectively barred Chinese passenger vehicles due to concerns of data collection and manipulation of vehicles connected to navigation systems.
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Those rules remain in place and the Trump administration so far has not signalled that it intends to modify them. Trump has said at times that he would welcome a Chinese carmaker that wants to build vehicles on US soil.