Presidential candidate Donald Trump invited Chinese electric carmakers to enter the US market—as long as they made the China-designed cars in America.
This would be a stark contrast to the Biden-Harris system of keeping the popular clean-energy cars out of the country by slapping a 100 per cent surcharge on them.
BANKERS INTRIGUED
The Trump plan has investment bankers intrigued.
"If acted upon, this would be a revolutionary change in the US-China trade relationship," said Marko Papic Chief Strategist at BCA Research.
"First, it would separate national security concerns from trade, adjusting US trade policy to the realities of a global multipolar environment. Second, it would resolve the trade dispute using tried and tested policies from the 1980s."
The strategist was referring to a period when Japan was the world's leading carmaker and was coerced into building its vehicles on US soil.
INVITATION INCLUDES THREAT
Trump has repeated the offer to Chinese carmakers several times, although it has had little coverage in the mainstream media, since it doesn't fit the narrative.
In March this year, he said: “If they want to build a plant in Michigan, in Ohio, in South Carolina, they can, using American workers, they can."
The offer was repeated last month in a convention speech, but in keeping with his tough guy image, a threat was included. "We don’t mind it happening but plants will be built in the United States and our people are going to man those plants. And if they don’t agree with us, we’ll put a tariff of approximately 100 to 200 percent on each car and they will be unsellable in the United States."
US CAR MAKERS NEED CHINA I.P.
Of course, all politicians make promises that fail to turn into actions. Yet Trump has made this offer repeatedly, and the electric car issue is not going to go away, so something will have to be done about it. Geely, BYD, Chery and other Chinese firms are enjoying remarkable sales growth in multiple countries.
There would be other advantages too, including IP transfer from China to the United States carmakers: In America, Tesla is over-dominant (51% of the electric market) and the Big Three car firms (13% between them) do need some creative input.
Would China consider accepting the deal? Probably yes. It has shown repeatedly that making trade deals overseas is the country's superpower.
WAY OUT OF TOXIC POLITICS
But more importantly, the offer shines a light on an unexamined difference between the two political parties in the United States.
The hyper-politicized Biden-Harris administration is controlled by the security establishment (call it the blob or the swamp or whatever), which gives an insanely paranoid military-intelligence quadrant the final yea or nay to every deal involving China.
Trump, for all his faults, is showing that a business deal can be handled as a business deal. This is something that China, and indeed all of Asia, can understand.
Trade is often beneficial, while US geo-politics is now always toxic.
Yet the Chinese should not make the mistake of thinking that Trump is friendly towards them. In the same speech that he invited them to build factories in the United States, Trump said: "If you go back 20, 25 years they’ve stolen, going to China and Mexico, about 68 percent of our auto industry. Manufacturing jobs. We’re going to get them all back. We’re going to get them all back, every single one of them."
His motivation sounds less like a hope for a win-win deal, and more like revenge.
by Nury Vittachi
Lai See(利是)
** 博客文章文責自負,不代表本公司立場 **
A White Booster Fragment Reopens an Old Mystery
A chunk of ballistic missile booster debris appeared in the Raghwan area of northern Marib Governorate, Yemen on September 14.
Images show the missile body painted an unusual white and marked with “DF-15A.” Its structure and dimensions point to China's DF-15 short-range ballistic missile.
Open-source defense analysts read that as a likely Saudi missile fired at a Houthi target inside Yemen.
For now, the available evidence is just a few social media photos. Saudi Arabia has not confirmed it, and no authoritative third-party institution has verified it.
DF-15A debris in Yemen—fired from a Saudi base?
The DF-15 is a mature single-stage solid-fuel tactical ballistic missile made by China.
It is about 9.1 meters long and 1 meter in diameter, with a total weight of 6.2 tons. Its maximum range is 600 kilometers, and it can carry a warhead of nearly 1 ton.
It uses a wheeled high-mobility launch vehicle and has a rapid-response capability of “stop and launch.”
For more than a year, outsiders have speculated whether Saudi Arabia possesses the DF-15.
Yoel Guzansky, a scholar at an Israeli think tank, has analyzed the question. He argues that while the Royal Saudi Strategic Missile Force introduced long-range deterrence, it very likely secretly procured short-range ballistic missiles such as the DF-15 to build a layered strike capability.
Then there is the 2013 model. When Prince Fahd, then Saudi Deputy Defense Minister, visited the Strategic Missile Force headquarters, the commemorative model he received showed three missiles side by side. Many at the time speculated they corresponded to the DF-15, DF-21, and the older DF-3.
Those early details are now being raised again because of the debris on the Yemen battlefield.
A gift model fueled years of DF-15 speculation.
Saudi Arabia's ballistic missile dealings with China go back to the 1980s. During the Iran-Iraq War, the “War of the Cities” missile attacks made Saudi Arabia feel security pressure.
In 1987, the two sides reached a defense project codenamed “Golden Wheel Project.” Saudi Arabia imported the DF-3 medium-range liquid-fuel ballistic missile and used it to build the Royal Saudi Strategic Missile Force, independent of the army, navy, and air force.
The liquid-fueled DF-3 required long preparation time and complex maintenance, with obvious operational limitations. After 2000, Saudi Arabia has introduced the DF-21B solid-fuel medium-range ballistic missile, with a range close to 2,000 kilometers and markedly improved strike accuracy.
If the DF-15 was indeed among the purchases, its timing would roughly fall between the two.
So why use missiles in Yemen instead of sending aircraft?
Why Jets Alone No Longer Solve the Problem
Saudi Arabia has one of the largest air forces in the Middle East. Its F-15SA and Typhoon fleets together number in the hundreds, and their payload capacity and precision-guided strike capability are first-rate. Two F-15s carrying several tons of precision-guided bombs usually deliver more against a target inside Yemen than a single DF-15A with a warhead of less than half a ton. On pure strike efficiency, the aircraft should be the first choice. The problem isn't the aircraft. It's the conditions needed to keep them flying sortie after sortie.
A modern air force cannot be made operational simply by buying a few fighter jets. Behind a single F-15 sortie is an entire chain: secure bases, intact runways, aviation fuel, ammunition depots, maintenance personnel, spare parts supply, and aerial refueling formations. If any link in that chain is continuously disrupted, the number of aircraft on paper separates from the number of sorties that can actually be flown each day.
The Houthis have built their recent tactics around exactly this logistics chain. On September 8, they said they used missiles and drones to hit King Khalid Air Base, Saudi Aramco oil facilities near Abha, and multiple targets in Jizan and Najran. Saudi authorities later confirmed attacks in several locations and said there were injuries.
By September 14, the Houthis again claimed to have struck hangars, radar, runways, and ammunition depots at Khamis Mushait Air Base. None of these targets were frontline positions. They were the core logistical hubs for Saudi air force operations, and the Houthi aim was to directly degrade the ability of Saudi warplanes to sustain sortie generation.
For Saudi air force planners, this means a higher cost per sortie. In the past, an F-15 taking off from Khamis Mushait had a very short flight to target areas in Yemen and could fly multiple waves in a day. The base can still be used now. But before each sortie, more time must be spent assessing runway safety, ammunition stocks, and fuel reserves. If missions are pulled back to Taif or even bases in central Saudi Arabia, the distance to Yemen nearly doubles, dependence on aerial refueling increases sharply, and the number of daily sorties from the same aircraft fleet declines.
In this context, ballistic missiles become far more attractive. They do not need runways, pilots, or tanker aircraft. They do not consume sortie capacity at harassed forward bases, and they do not expend U.S.-provided precision-guided bombs. With solid-fuel propulsion and pre-set parameters on mobile launchers, they can hit targets directly from several hundred kilometers away.
Truck-mounted missiles strike fast—no air bases needed
A Two-Tier Strike System Takes Shape
The DF-15A is a short-range ballistic missile that China finalized in the 1990s and brought to the international market in the 2000s. It is not cutting-edge by today's standards, but its attributes strike at Saudi Arabia's current pain points.
It also has shortcomings. It is not cost-effective against moving targets, costs more than a conventional airstrike, and is less accurate than laser-guided bombs. So it will not replace aircraft. Instead, it backfills specific scenarios: striking fixed command posts, frontline assembly areas, storage facilities, or conducting high-intensity area denial as the Houthis advance.
If the reports are true, what is Saudi Arabia trying to convey by using the DF-15? It does not look like a gesture aimed solely at Iran. Iran does not need a piece of wreckage to confirm that Saudi Arabia has ballistic missiles.
Nor does it necessarily mean Saudi Arabia is short of warplanes. Saudi Arabia still maintains hundreds of advanced fighter jets, and its force structure has not changed. What is really being tested is the sortie rate of frontline aircraft and persistently high combat costs.
The signal truly worth noting is that Saudi Arabia is adjusting its strike system. It is moving from an air-heavy approach to a two-tier structure of 'air plus ballistic missiles.'
When the air chain is functioning normally, F-15s and Typhoons carry the main precision-strike burden. When bases are disrupted, fuel is tight, precision munitions must be conserved, and the cost of forward sorties is too high, ballistic missiles take over some conventional missions.
This is an adjustment made under battlefield pressure by a military of considerable size. It is not a sign of desperation.
This piece of wreckage on the battlefield in northern Yemen, whether or not it is ultimately confirmed, has already put a question on the table. When ballistic missiles move from the strategic deterrence arsenal into the conventional strike sequence, it shows that battlefield friction has become large enough to change a country's approach to striking.
If this wreckage is ultimately confirmed, it would also mean another thing: a Chinese-developed DF-series ballistic missile has left a record of actual combat use for the first time.
Since the DF-3 was exported to Saudi Arabia in 1987, the series has for decades been synonymous with strategic deterrence. Its purpose has been 'to keep others from acting' rather than 'to be fired.'
For more than thirty years, it has never truly fallen on a battlefield.
The First Combat Mark, and Why Caution Still Matters
This time, the difference is in kind. Moving the missile from the strategic deterrence stockpile into the conventional strike sequence turns it from a showpiece trump card into an expendable combat asset.
Once that threshold is crossed, the positioning that follows will shift too, but overselling its significance should be cautioned. A short-range ballistic missile hitting a staging area in northern Yemen has limited tactical value. It cannot change the course of the battlefield.
What has truly changed is how the outside world sees China's exported ballistic missiles. In the past, their capabilities stayed mostly on specification sheets and parade grounds. Now battlefield data exists, whether good or bad, and it becomes a verifiable reference in the international arms trade market.
Until the evidence firms up, the phrase "the world's first combat use" still calls for caution. The rare white missile body may indicate something, but it cannot indicate everything.
