China Commission Recommends Ban on Some Chinese Grid Batteries
A year after the U.S. China Economic and Security Review Commission recommended that de minimis be terminated, and that normal trading relations with China be terminated, only one of its top 10 recommendations was about the treatment of imports. Its annual report for 2025 recommends that Congress ban the import of energy storage systems that have remote monitoring capabilities, if they are made by Chinese companies or their technology was licensed by Chinese companies. Most utility-scale storage batteries are lithium-ion, and 80% of those batteries are made in China.
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The other recommendation, though not in the top 10, was for a Commerce-initiated antidumping investigation on Chinese robotics.
More of the report concerned export controls and sanctions. However, the commission noted that both export controls and "securing supply chains by preventing transshipment and reducing exposure to Chinese inputs are likewise global challenges that will require close coordination with allies and partners in every region of the world."
The report also recommends that the U.S. and other countries coordinate on trade remedies.
China's "heavily state-distorted economic model has resulted in systemic dumping and massive excess supply, which is now flooding emerging markets -- causing major job losses and hurting the manufacturing sectors of developing economies all over the world. China’s surging exports of low-cost products like textiles and electronics to Southeast Asia have already led to hundreds of thousands of job losses in Indonesia and contributed to thousands of factory closures in Thailand," they wrote.
"Left unchecked, this wave of predatory overcapacity threatens to hollow out not only developing economies but also key segments of U.S. and allied manufacturing -- eroding the industrial base essential to national security."
They asked Congress to write legislation for mutual recognition of unfair trade practices, which could include "a voluntary, expedited mechanism to support coordinated application of trade remedies against unfair trade practices, including but not limited to antidumping and countervailing duty orders."
They noted that when U.S. firms can't export because their products are undercut by dumped Chinese goods in third countries, there is no trade remedy. They suggested an international forum that would ensure fair treatment for U.S. exporters.
The commission pointed to China's use of rare earth magnet export restrictions to successfully get the U.S. to back down on 145% tariffs, and said China could weaponize chokepoints in pharmaceuticals. It recommended that the law be changed so that the FDA can require drug manufacturers to report the "ultimate origin" of active pharmaceutical ingredients and key starting materials for drugs consumed in the U.S., even if those Chinese inputs were used in another country's factories.
It also recommended that Congress hold hearings on the Commerce Department's Supply Chain Center, on whether it needs more funding to be able to track U.S. dependence on China for intermediate inputs and materials. "The Supply Chain Center should then be required to provide an annual report identifying a set of goods and materials deemed critical to national defense and/or the functioning of the civilian economy, detailing trends in U.S. dependence on China for those goods and materials, and reporting on the status of policies and programs intended to limit that dependence."