On January 15, 2026, it became known about negotiations between the American auto giant Ford and the Chinese company BYD regarding the supply of batteries for vehicles.
The negotiations have a pragmatic dimension for the American automaker–the curtailment of the strategy for developing electric vehicles in favor of hybrids requires stable access to batteries, and BYD remains one of the few manufacturers capable of quickly scaling supplies.
For Ford, these negotiations are a rational production decision, but in a broader context, the purchase of Chinese batteries by American companies signals a problem of technological dependence, control over data, and vulnerability of Western infrastructure to China.
It is this aspect that provoked a harsh reaction from Donald Trump’s trade advisor Peter Navarro, who publicly criticized the potential agreements between Ford and BYD, emphasizing the risks of strategic vulnerability.
His statement that Ford “simultaneously supports the supply chain of a Chinese competitor and makes itself dependent on possible blackmail from this same chain” demonstrates that in Washington, such steps are perceived as an element of US economic security.
In this context, the integration of BYD batteries into Ford’s production plans forms a new form of hidden weaponization—not through restricting access to raw materials, but through structural dependence of Western manufacturers on Chinese technological components.
Such dependence is less noticeable to regulators but significantly more difficult to dismantle quickly in case of political escalation.
It is noteworthy that the negotiations are being conducted regarding the supply of batteries to Ford plants specifically outside the USA to avoid direct control over investment security by CFIUS or tariff restrictions, which only underscores the parties’ awareness of the political sensitivity of the issue.
The detection by forensic teams of US energy companies in 2024 of undeclared components in batteries and inverters from Chinese suppliers shifted the discussion about batteries from the plane of price and anti-competitive practices.
It moved the focus to China’s unauthorized access to data and control over infrastructure systems, which directly concerns energy grids and transportation.
The risk is amplified by the fact that Chinese legislation obliges companies to cooperate with state security agencies, making any dependence on Chinese batteries, software, or sensor systems a political factor, even if contracts are formally concluded by private companies and outside the USA.
This explains Washington’s decisions to ban Chinese software in connected vehicles starting from the 2027 model year and hardware components from 2029, as well as to restrict testing of Chinese autonomous systems on American roads, viewing the vehicle as a data carrier rather than an ordinary commodity.
Related cases, including Israel’s decision to halt the use of BYD vehicles in military structures due to risks of data transmission, and warnings from British defense agencies regarding sensors and cloud services, solidify an approach in which batteries and electric vehicles are included in the list of technologies with enhanced control regimes.
In a strategic dimension, this concerns a change in China’s role in global value chains—from control over critical minerals and their supplies to the integration of final technological products into Western production processes.
If previously the critical node of the West’s dependence on China was rare earth metals and basic components, now the point of vulnerability is batteries as a complex product that China weaponizes.
The Ford-BYD partnership solves a tactical problem for the American manufacturer amid the curtailment of large EV programs, but at the same time institutionally opens access for Chinese companies to shaping standards and the rhythm of Western automotive production.
The dominance of CATL, whose batteries are installed in more than a third of the world’s electric vehicles, demonstrates that Chinese companies have learned to convert the scale of the domestic market into technological hegemony, which is difficult to neutralize with tariffs or targeted regulatory restrictions.
The oversaturation of the Chinese battery market and slowdown in domestic demand are forcing CATL and BYD to aggressively enter foreign markets, where production of final products, not raw material extraction, determines real economic and political influence.
It is in this context that Canada’s decision to cancel the 100% duty on Chinese electric vehicles in exchange for trade concessions in agriculture signals the erosion of a unified Western tariff front against the Chinese auto industry.
In this sense, Ottawa’s actions become part of the Canadian government’s political line of distancing from the trade and industrial strategy of the Trump administration.
This stance was publicly reinforced during Mark Carney’s sharply critical statements in Davos, where Canada essentially positioned itself as an alternative center to the United States within the Western camp.
At the same time, in Washington, Canada’s logic of action will be interpreted not as pragmatic balancing of interests, but as a form of indirect economic support for China at a time when the American administration is trying to restrict Chinese auto industry access to Western markets.
Under this configuration, the US response will include tools such as additional tariffs on Canadian vehicles and components, sectoral pressure on agricultural exports, or review of access regimes to American financing or subsidy programs.
Lowering barriers for Chinese electric cars in Canada transforms North America from a buffer market into a channel for reintegrating Chinese exports, creating a situation for the USA where restrictions on access to its own market lose strategic effectiveness.
Trips by Western company executives to China show how technologically behind Western manufacturers are: automated factories, autonomous logistics, and short development cycles make the Chinese auto industry a full-fledged competitor to Western automakers.
Attempts by Ford, Volkswagen, Renault, and Nissan to shorten the development cycle to the Chinese level essentially mean transferring engineering centers, component supplies, and production processes to China, which solidifies its role as the center of global automotive engineering.
According to an AlixPartners study, Chinese electric vehicle manufacturers conduct durability testing on average for 600,000 km per vehicle, while foreign automakers usually require about 3 million km.
Chinese concerns also release vehicles before completing all software checks and rely on over-the-air updates. Company executives claim that this strategy allows them to meet release deadlines and avoid releasing already outdated technologies, although critics note that this may cause safety issues.
In parallel, chip restrictions from Beijing, including the export ban by the Chinese company Nexperia, show that China is capable of synchronizing technological pressure with trade expansion, using component shortages as a tool to discipline Western manufacturers.
Ford’s strategy of reorienting battery production to energy storage using CATL technologies demonstrates that even with the curtailment of EV policies, the West continues to import Chinese products for critical infrastructure.
In the end, the Ford-BYD and Ford-CATL deals fix a moment when China begins to win the competition not for resources, but for end-consumer markets, where demand shapes policy faster than regulatory barriers or Western geo-economic declarations.
In parallel, the Ford and Renault deal in Europe fixes a qualitatively new stage of Western automakers’ adaptation to Chinese competition logic, where control over the platform, scaling speed, and end-product cost become decisive, not formal ownership of technologies.
Using the Ampere platform means for Ford a conscious departure from the model of full vertical control in favor of engineering integration, which allows shortening the development cycle, reducing capital expenditures, and entering the segment of affordable electric vehicles without protracted investments in proprietary architectures.
It is noteworthy that the partnership goes beyond one product and covers light commercial vehicles and potential joint production of models under different brands, indicating a rethinking of the logic of brand competition in the European market.
Ford essentially acknowledges that competing with Chinese manufacturers in the mass electric vehicle segment requires cooperation between Western companies that until recently competed with each other for the same niches, but now are forced to combine engineering and production resources.
In a broader context, this partnership fits into a trend where Europe turns into a testing ground for trialing a hybrid model of Western auto industry that combines development speed characteristic of China, European platform engineering, and American brand presence.
In the aggregate of these factors, the automotive market is entering a phase of structural transformation, where the key driver is not consumer demand or technological innovation per se, but the geo-economic logic of states, which through tariffs, subsidies, export restrictions, and industrial policy rewrite the rules of competition.
The automobile gradually ceases to be a purely commercial commodity and transforms into an element of strategic infrastructure embedded in chains of security, energy, and technological sovereignty.
In the coming years, this will lead to the fragmentation of the global automotive market into several regional clusters with different development logics.
Technologically, the market will move not linearly toward electric vehicles, but through hybrid and adaptive models, where the key role will be played by the manufacturer’s ability to adapt to a specific regulatory and tariff regime.
Mass electrification will slow down in countries with cheap traditional energy and weak charging infrastructure, like the USA, while in other regions it will take the form of a managed transition, rigidly tied to subsidies and state programs.
The next cycle will force automakers to prove political maturity alongside engineering capability. Companies that continue to think in terms of a global free market will find themselves under pressure from tariffs, regulations, and investors who will increasingly evaluate their resilience to political shocks.
