Republicans Playing UAW Bagman: The Mercedes Ban Is Pure Cronyism
The UAW and General Motors have found willing Republican accomplices in Congress to kneecap Mercedes-Benz over passive Chinese minority investors. The Connected Vehicle Security Act of 2026, introduced by Sens. Bernie Moreno (R-OH) and Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) and advanced by the Senate Commerce Committee, would effectively ban Mercedes vehicles from the U.S. market because two Chinese shareholders own 19.7% of the company—well above the arbitrary 15% threshold. Never mind that Mercedes-Benz USA is a U.S. company with U.S. management that employs thousands of Americans in right-to-work Alabama and South Carolina, or that it just announced a $4 billion investment there. This isn’t national security. It’s industrial policy as extortion: punish a foreign competitor that refuses to bend the knee to the UAW.
Let’s call this what it is—cronyism at its ugliest. GM and the UAW want to hamstring a rival building cars in non-union Southern plants while they bleed market share and demand taxpayer bailouts and EV mandates to survive. The bill also layers on restrictions targeting Chinese-supplied software and battery components with even lower ownership thresholds. Yet it conveniently carves out exemptions and waivers for the politically connected. For example, Volvo was given an exemption while Polestar was not, even though they have the same Chinese majority owners. In addition, there is a process for manufacturers to appeal the ban for which cronyism and favoritism will clearly motivate any decisions.
It has drawn 32 co-sponsors, including 25 Republicans. As the Wall Street Journal noted, even Commerce Committee Chair Ted Cruz questioned why Republicans are so eager to harm jobs in GOP-led states just to carry water for a union that funnels nearly all its political money to Democrats.
Republicans who back this rent-seeking should explain themselves to the Alabama and South Carolina workers whose jobs they’re volunteering to sacrifice. It’s not surprising that RINOs like Bernie Moreno, Josh Hawley, and Tom Cotton would be on board, but it’s disappointing that right-thinking senators like Marsha Blackburn, Pete Ricketts, Shelley Moore Capito, Ted Budd, Tim Sheehy, Joni Ernst, Jon Husted, Rick Scott, Cindy Hyde-Smith, and John Cornyn would be on board.
This is exactly how the Beltway corrupts free-market principles: wrap protectionism in an anti-China flag, hand regulators arbitrary power to pick winners, and watch American workers and consumers pay the price through higher costs, fewer choices, and lost investment. National security deserves serious tools like CFIUS review based on actual control—not equity thresholds designed to settle union scores. Economic reality doesn’t care about election-year posturing. Property rights, open competition, and limited government do.