ExclusiveU.S. Imposes 260% Tariffs on Chinese Trailers | China in Focus

Welcome to China In Focus. I'm Tiffany Meyer. Our top story, a 260% tariff on a Chinese product, and it's here to stay for at least five years. The U.S. Commerce Department announced the move today. Can a joke cost millions? In China, it's possible, especially when it's about a dictator. Now, Chinese brands are dropping French soccer star Kylian Mbappe from their ads. What sparked the backlash? When it goes well, everybody celebrates. But when you get it wrong, it can be extraordinarily painful and swift in its retribution. Federal agents searched a Beverly Hills mansion as part of the investigation into former Congressman Eric Swalwell. Swalwell was also in the spotlight before over his ties to suspected Chinese spy Fang Fang over an alleged honey trap, as well as allegations of sexual misconduct made by several women. The U.S. remains committed in the Indo-Pacific. That's the message Secretary of War Pete Hegseth delivered to Southeast Asian nations at a key meeting in the Philippines. That is by definition peace through strength. 260 percent tariffs on a certain product from China. Despite U.S. and Chinese leaders agreeing to hold off escalating tariffs until January next year, the U.S. Commerce Department announced that starting Wednesday, it is imposing 260 percent on Chinese trailers for at least five years. More specifically, Chinese van-type trailers used to transport cargo behind large vans and trucks, as well as sub-assemblies. The U.S. International Trade Commission found that China's been dumping these kinds of products at ultra-cheap prices backed by Chinese subsidies. The American Trailer Manufacturers Coalition estimates that 40% of van-type trailers in the U.S. are Chinese, Canadian, and Mexican. Though it is important to note that Canada and Mexico are at risk of containing Chinese parts in their supply chains. A separate probe into trailer imports from Canada and Mexico is currently underway. As with every other business hit by offshoring and cheap foreign competition, U.S. trailer manufacturing has taken a massive hit. According to the trailer company Great Danes Executive Vice President Chris Hammond, the number of U.S. trailer manufacturers fell from around 20 two decades ago to six today. Upon hearing news of the Chinese tariffs, U.S. manufacturers are making moves to expand. Stoughton Trailers announced plans to make more than 500 hires. It's also expected to make a $26 million investment that could create thousands more jobs. Chinese companies kicked out French soccer player Kylian Mbappe from brand deals after comments he made circulated on social media that the Chinese regime is calling offensive. Some major Chinese brands have removed Kylian Mbappé from their advertisements. It started with an interview with French online talk show The Bridge, which was published on Monday. In it, the French player talked about an online meme of him being a dictator. When he was asked which meme was his favorite, Mbappé said quote, a video someone made of a guy, I think he was a Chinese dictator. Mbappé never said the Chinese dictator's name in question, but the clip showed Mbappé's face on an image of Mao Zedong. The backlash was swift. Boycotts were imposed. Broadcasts for the Spanish Soccer League were suspended because Mbappé plays in the league. Mbappé's Chinese social media account on Red Note was banned from accepting new followers. And online condemnation came flooding in from the Chinese internet. This includes condemnation from one of China's biggest online soccer outlets. China's foreign ministry and Chinese state-run media, the Global Times joined in on the public flogging, saying that Mbappé is now paying the price and deserves it. Zach DeQual, the founder of Bridgeworks Global, describes what the business environment in China is like. When it goes well, everybody celebrates. But when you get it wrong, it can be extraordinarily painful and swift in its retribution. Mbappé and the Spanish League issued apologies, stating they regretted Mbappé's comments and they have deep respect for China. This, once again, highlights a pattern that the sports business follows in order to access the Chinese market. Don't say anything bad about the Chinese Communist Party, and if someone breaks that rule, backtrack hard and keep promoting pro-CCP narratives. The issue is separate from the historical record of Mao Zedong, who really was a dictator, and responsible for killing millions of people and ruling over China with an authoritarian iron fist. The broader concern is that businesses seeking to operate in China may face pressure to avoid statements that make the CCP look bad. The U.S. House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party responded on Tuesday saying Mbappe should not have apologized for calling Mao Zedong a dictator. It added that the harm Mao inflicted on the Chinese people far exceeds what can be summarized by Mbappe's comments. Federal agents searched a Beverly Hills mansion Tuesday as part of the investigation into former Congressman Eric Swalwell. The home belongs to billionaire donor Stephen Klubeck, who donated more than $23,000 to Swalwell's congressional campaigns since 2017. Swalwell resigned from Congress in April after multiple women accused him of sexual misconduct. He denies any criminal wrongdoing. Klubeck previously supported Swalwell, but publicly cut ties with him after the allegations surfaced. The FBI has not disclosed what agents were looking for, and the search warrant affidavit remains sealed. Federal investigators also searched Swalwell's Washington, D.C. home and seized his electronic devices in San Francisco earlier this year. Meanwhile, earlier this year, the relationship of Eric Swalwell and suspected Chinese spy Fang Fang caught public attention. Between 2012 and 2015, Fang integrated herself into local political circles, helping raise money for Swalwell's campaign and even placing an intern in his office. De-classified FBI files from 2026 revealed Swalwell and Fang actually had a brief physical relationship during that time. After federal agents gave Swalwell a briefing in 2015 about who she really was, he cut ties immediately and Fang fled back to China that same year. Another Chinese-backed scam operation disrupted. The Justice Department announces charges against six scammers based in Madagascar with ties to China. Authorities say some 800 Americans fell victim to the online scams. Today we have charged six defendants. There they are over there. And we have not only charged them, but our embassy has delivered to Madagascar our official request to extradite. You see the six over here. Chu Kuk Wah is the leader of that organization. We have obtained material witness warrants for 15 individuals who are employees of WAH, who claim that they themselves were human trafficked and abused by WAH, and we believe that they're now being held in jail in Madagascar. The Justice Department says the scammers used fake online romantic relationships to entice victims into fraudulent cryptocurrency investment schemes. The scams operated out of 13 suspected scam compounds in Madagascar. The department emphasizes that such scam centers have now spread globally, often backed by Chinese transnational criminal organizations, making $40 billion a year. The department says it has identified losses of half a million dollars so far and expects that number to grow substantially. It plans to give the money back to the victims. Federal authorities say they will continue to work with international partners to bring the scammers to justice. They ask Americans to be alert about investment opportunities that seem too good to be true, and not to connect cryptocurrency wallets to people you only met online. Turning now to cooperation between China and Russia, Chinese and Russian leaders Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin even declared a no-limits partnership. But how deep does that partnership go? C4ADS, a non-profit, recently put out a report titled A Marriage of Convenience, the promise and pitfalls of Chinese-Russian Advanced Conventional Weapons Cooperation. The organization's mission is to dismantle illicit networks that threaten global peace and security. The report shows how China and Russia are becoming more interconnected than ever, especially after Russia's invasion of Ukraine. According to the report, cooperation between sanctioned private Russian defense companies and Chinese companies has expanded into production and supply chains. This includes semiconductors, the brains for every modern weapons system like precision-guided munitions and drones. Russian trade data shows that China provided over half of more than 625,000 shipments of common high-priority list Tier 1 semiconductors between February 2022 and December 2024 alone. Among those involved in the semiconductor industry is PJSC Element, a sanctioned Russian state-owned microelectronics company with Russian defense ties. Financial data show PJSC Element incorporated at least four subsidiaries in China in the summer of 2025. And this is important to note because PJSC Element could contribute to Russia's wider initiative of developing its own domestic semiconductor industry. There are signs that Russia, like with semiconductors, may also be offshoring production of complex components that go into aerospace, missile, and weapons manufacturing in China. This is in addition to companies like Microbore and Vireal relying more on China for even the most basic manufacturing inputs by increasing Chinese precursor materials and cutting instrument imports. Russia and China's cooperation goes even further up in the supply chain, with both sides having to gain something from it. Both are working together to develop better ship engines and aerospace technology. An example of this is Russian trade data showing that a Chinese research institute conducted tests with aerospace materials supplied by a Russian research institute for aviation materials. This includes an enamel coating used for Russian military aircraft. The report also showed that Russia gained Chinese counter-UAV systems to use against Ukraine. And China gained Russian technical know-how to improve its airborne command and control systems and its drone swarm capabilities. China and Russia's collaboration even touched submarine technology as well. It's possible that cooperation has helped Russia improve its automation technology and China improve its stealth capabilities. The report also points out that Russian research universities connected to Russia's defense industry have allowed more Chinese students in. While there are obstacles between China and Russia, such as China's concern of giving Russia its most advanced chip designs and Russia's concern of Chinese espionage in its electronic supply chains, The report is a warning to the West of how China and Russia are using a wide range of tactics to weaken them. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth met with his counterparts from Southeast Asia in the ASEAN Defense Ministers' meeting in the Philippines. Looking ahead, Hegseth proposed developing a defense framework between the U.S. and its partners in the region. We propose that we work together to develop a U.S.-ASEAN framework for defense cooperation, A practical framework that guides our cooperation over the next several years. I will note a critically important next several years. We are ready to begin that work with Minister Chan and his team as Singapore assumes the ADMM Plus chairmanship. Hexeth also met with Philippine Secretary of National Defense Gilberto Teodoro Jr. The two leaders agreed to speed up efforts to modernize their joint command system so the U.S. and the Philippines can coordinate in real time. Hegseth also announced more U.S. funding to improve how allied forces work together along the first island chain, a string of islands stretching from Japan to the Malay Peninsula and Borneo that acts as a key barrier to Chinese naval expansion. On the sidelines of the ASEAN meeting, Hegseth also met with his counterparts in the Quad, Japan, Australia, and India. I still think there is very much a focus of the Trump administration on this part of the world. I think they understand the strategic challenges that we face here. While they aren't explicitly naming names, the message is clear that all this is about countering and deterring China as it continues engaging in conflict with the Philippines, expanding its military, and engaging in various influence operations to expand control of the South China Sea and the wider Indo-Pacific. Coming up, a watershed incident 20 years ago shocked the U.S. Navy. Where do the Chinese and U.S. Navy stand today, and what challenges does the U.S. face? Former Director of Intelligence for the Navy's Pacific Fleet, Captain James Finnell, breaks it down. More on that after the break here on China In Focus. Welcome back to China In Focus. I'm Tiffany Meyer. Turning now to Chinese aggression in the Pacific, we look back at a watershed incident from 20 years ago that completely shocked the U.S. Navy. On October 26, 2006, a Chinese submarine secretly snuck up right next to a U.S. aircraft carrier, USS Kitty Hawk, without anyone noticing. The carrier group had elite high-tech defenses, but the sub ran so quietly on battery power that it slipped right past them. Out of nowhere, it surfaced just a few miles away, proving they were close enough to sink the carrier if they wanted to. It was a massive wake-up call for the U.S. military, proving their sonar wasn't foolproof. China essentially did it as a huge flag to show that they could hold their own in the Pacific. To discuss this, NTD's Carrie Dunst spoke with the former Director of Intelligence for the Navy's Pacific Fleet, Captain James Finnell. It would be helpful if you can first recount your role 20 years ago at the time and what the Song Kitty Hawk incident was. Well, Kerry, thanks for having me on. 20 years ago, I had just left the Kitty Hawk strike group. I would have been what they call the end to the Director of Intelligence. I'd left it in 2005, and I was at the Office of Naval Intelligence in Washington, D.C., and we got word that a Chinese submarine, diesel-class Song submarine, had popped up behind the USS Kitty Hawk within five nautical miles, which we call the vital area around the carrier. This happened in an area about 100 miles east of Okinawa, where our carriers go down and conduct routine flight operations and carrier qualifications and training down there. So the fact that this Chinese submarine had popped up came as a bit of a surprise to the U.S. Navy because the Chinese had not really sent any submarines out of the first island chain for about a two-year period because of a series of mishaps that they had had over the preceding two years, fires and a sinking aboard three of their submarines and one submarine coming close to Okinawa in its territorial waters. that it embarrassed the Chinese and their new Chinese navy leader Admiral Wu Shengli had put basically a stand down on any out of area operations for the submarine force so when this popped up it sent a signal to us that the Chinese were essentially resuming their out-of-area operations and for the next 20 years that's what we saw unfolded so it was really a watershed event for the Pacific and for the U.S. And as you reflect now on that, and as you write in your article, you said that this watershed moment happened really on two fronts. Can you go a little bit deeper on that? Yeah. I mean, on the one hand, it was in terms of what the Chinese started to build. And so they began a rapid military and naval modernization program that had been going along at a pretty good clip up until 2006. But afterwards, the Chinese Navy really grew. So in 2006, the U.S. Navy was about 281 warships, and the Chinese Navy was about 222 similar major combatants. That was about a 59-ship advantage for the U.S. Navy. Today, 20 years later, we have in the U.S. Navy less than 300 warships, and the Chinese Navy has about 370 warships, or a 70-ship advantage for the Chinese. So in the space of 20 years, The Chinese went from being down 60 or so combatants to being ahead of us, 70 combatants, about 130 ships wing in a 20-year period. So a demonstration of major Chinese naval modernization program and capability. And the other thing that they did was that they started operating out of area on a greater degree. For instance, in 2007, we saw the first Chinese five-ship surface action group break outside the first island chain and conduct operations that they had never done before with that many ships. They had sent one or two ships in the past, but never five ships. And that has now continued. In 2020, the Chinese sent five major combatants across the international dateline for the first time ever. And they operated and conducted a live fire exercise that was actually closer to Hawaii than it was to Guam. In carrier operations, they began expanding their operations to the degree that they had built four aircraft carriers. There's a fourth one under construction right now. But in the space of about 15 years, they're going to have four aircraft carriers. And those carriers are now operating at extended ranges from China. For instance, last year in the fall, China sent two carriers to operate around those waters that you showed in your last segment. One carrier operating near Guam and another carrier operating east of the second island chain, east of Iwo Jima for the first time ever. We're seeing similar operations from their submarines. We're seeing Chinese vessels operate in the Gulf of Aden on a day-for-day basis since December of 2008. Chinese warships operating in the Mediterranean, in the Baltic, in the Atlantic, the Gulf of Guinea. So they're now pushing out and achieving their goal of becoming a global navy, which matches Xi's global security initiative and Global Governance Initiative, desired end states. And as we start to finish up, to those who think that, you know, we overblow the threat of China or maybe don't think it's, you know, a top three thing that should be discussed amidst all the other things that are happening with elections, etc. How do you frame that to those types of people? And with the secretary now at the ASEAN meeting, how important are our local partnerships so that we don't have to act alone? Yeah, I frequently am told or asked about, well, it's just numbers of ships. It doesn't take into account quality. And I would just assure the viewers that China's quality of their combatants is very good. This is not the Soviet Navy of the Cold War era. They have advanced anti-ship cruise missiles that are ballistic missiles and hypersonic missiles. Their ships are staying at sea for longer periods of time. So they're seasoned sailors. And they're new ships. Their ships are a generation or two newer than the US Navy. I was commissioned in 1986. We had about 600 warships. As I said, we have less than 300 today. So we've been cut in half, and they have more than doubled. And they're going to sea, staying at sea. And we should take that very seriously. And that's why our alliances are so important. Our alliance with Japan, our alliance with South Korea, our alliance with the Philippines, Australia, Thailand. These are all major longstanding alliances that help us maintain freedom of navigation and free access to the seas. And we don't take that lightly. I don't think this administration takes that lightly. But that's why America needs to be involved and engaged in the Pacific with our allies until we can get our shipyards back in production and get us back to where we need to be like we were maybe in 1986 with the 600-ship Navy. That's all for today's China In Focus. Tiffany Meyer, if you have any feedback on the show or have something you'd like to see us cover, send us an email at ChinaInFocus at NTD.com. We'd love to hear from you. For on-the-clock original news coverage, visit us at NTD.com or download our NTD app. Thanks for watching. See you tomorrow.