America Can’t Reindustrialize on Chinese Batteries

Washington has learned, often the hard way, that supply chains once treated as purely commercial can carry real national security consequences. Huawei exposed that risk in telecommunications. Chinese drones raised similar surveillance concerns in America’s skies. Advanced batteries now demand the same level of scrutiny. They are rapidly becoming foundational to the U.S. electric grid, large-scale data center expansion, and the industrial systems that will define the next phase of American growth.

That reality is now colliding with a different impulse in Washington. Ahead of a high-level summit between President Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping, the administration has signaled openness to foreign investment, including from China, where it supports domestic growth and job creation. The risk is that, in the push to reindustrialize, the U.S. embeds strategic dependence on a foreign adversary in a sector that will shape our economic and national security posture for decades. 

Beijing already treats advanced batteries as a strategic lever in its competition with Washington and is actively building the dependencies that come with it. Chinese firms dominate key upstream segments of the battery supply chain, including critical mineral processing and battery cell production. That concentration gives China the ability to influence pricing and constrain supply, leaving U.S. firms dependent on inputs they do not control. It also creates pressure points Beijing can exploit in moments of tension, using threats to cut off key materials and components to shape commercial behavior and influence broader policy decisions.

A second layer of risk lies in how these battery systems operate once deployed. Modern battery platforms and factories rely on software that manages performance, safety, and efficiency in real time, generating continuous data and often requiring ongoing vendor support. With Chinese providers, that can mean sensitive operational data and system insights flowing back to entities subject to Chinese national security laws, which compel cooperation with China’s military and intelligence services. As these battery systems become more deeply integrated into the U.S. electric grid and defense supply chains, the stakes around Chinese access to that data grow significantly.

Joint ventures and licensing arrangements with Chinese battery firms are often presented as a way to bring production to the U.S. while managing risk. In practice, they tend to do the opposite. They tie U.S. manufacturing to Chinese technology, force commercial design choices that remain dependent on those systems and reduce the incentive to build American alternatives. Over time, that dynamic deepens reliance on Chinese inputs and makes it harder for U.S. and allied firms to compete on their own.

The proposed partnership between Ford and China’s CATL brings these risks into sharp focus. The project centers on a Michigan facility to produce lithium batteries using CATL technology, allowing Ford to scale production. The tradeoff is less visible. CATL appears on the Defense Department’s list of Chinese military companies, and the Pentagon ordered the removal of a CATL battery platform from Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune in North Carolina after a national security review. Embedding that same Chinese technology into U.S. manufacturing means integrating it into millions of vehicles and, over time, energy systems tied to critical infrastructure. The final product may carry an American label, but the underlying technology clearly remains Chinese.

The experience with Chinese-built port cranes offers a cautionary parallel. A 2024 House of Representatives investigation found that widely deployed cranes at our nation’s ports of entry contained hidden communication capabilities that could enable remote access and data collection by China. What began as a routine commercial procurement has since become a national security concern, with the United States now moving to rip-and-replace those systems at significant cost. Without action, battery infrastructure risks following the same path.

Congress has already drawn a clear line in one area. A National Defense Authorization Act provision signed into law in 2025 bars the Pentagon from procuring batteries from Chinese firms such as CATL, BYD, and Gotion. That decision reflects a bipartisan judgment that these technologies introduce risks that cannot be managed through contracts alone. Extending that principle across the federal government, including to agencies such as the Department of Energy and the Department of Homeland Security, would better align policy with the realities now taking shape in the commercial sector.

That same discipline should guide President Trump as he prepares for a leader-level meeting with Xi in Beijing. Summits create pressure to deliver tangible outcomes, and investment discussions will invariably feature as both sides look to extend the current trade truce. Batteries should be off the table. Their role across critical infrastructure, combined with the depth of existing supply chain exposure, places them in a different category. What’s more, deals struck today would embed dependencies that prove costly and difficult to unwind tomorrow.

The Trump administration is right to focus on rebuilding America’s industrial base in an era defined by strategic competition with China. But that effort requires more than capacity and capital. It requires control over the technologies, inputs, and systems that will power the next generation of American industry. The decisions made in the run-up to this summit will help determine whether that control remains in U.S. hands or slips to a strategic competitor.

Craig Singleton, a former U.S. diplomat, is a senior fellow at the non-partisan Foundation for Defense of Democracies.