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News came out on Friday that President Biden is set to quadruple tariffs on Chinese EVs to protect the US auto industry from the rapid growth of Chinese EV manufacturing.

But instead of just de facto banning the competition from giving Americans access to affordable hot new EVs, the US should instead try making affordable hot new EVs itself.

The global auto industry is in a time of flux.

Cars are changing quickly, as is car manufacturing. The leaders of today, and of the last half-century, are not guaranteed to remain the leaders in the face of new entrants and new technology. And most of all, a new powertrain – electric – that will account for roughly 100% of cars on the road within a couple decades, which no serious person disputes.

Further, as one of the most polluting sectors globally and the most polluting in rich countries, it is necessary that transportation clean up its act, and fast, in order to avoid the worst effects of climate change. The sooner this happens, the easier it will be for all of us.

The new entrants to car manufacturing aren’t just in the form of startups like Tesla or Rivian, but in the form of nations which previously did not have a large presence in international auto manufacturing, but will take advantage of this flux to become more competitive in a changing global market.

The largest of these new entrants is the second most populous country in the world, the world’s largest exporter and its second-largest economy: China. China has heretofore not been a major player in car exports, but that’s changing.

China has been spending the last couple decades building up its manufacturing base, particularly in electronics, and particularly focusing on securing raw material supplies and partnerships and on building up refining capacity.

The strongest move in this respect has been Xi Jinping’s centerpiece Belt and Road Initiative, a set of policies intended to secure trade routes and mineral partnerships between China and less-developed, mineral-rich countries, generally in exchange for infrastructure development. It’s not unlike the actions of the West via the IMF and the World Bank, investing in development of poorer countries in order to secure material partnerships.

All of these entities have been credibly accused of exploitative actions towards the developing world – generally utilizing terms like economic imperialism, debt-trap diplomacy, or neocolonialism.

But the point of this is that China has been getting ready for this transition for a long time through concerted national effort, whereas the US is only recently doing so (via the Inflation Reduction Act and its attempts to onshore/”friend-shore” EV manufacturing and sourcing).

Japan and the 1970s as parable

We have, in fact, seen this story before. In the 1970s, the US auto industry was rocked by dual crises, a gas price crisis that left their large, gas-guzzling vehicles less competitive, and a steel crisis which greatly affected US steel manufacturers.

The steel crisis came courtesy of Japan, a country whose manufacturing methods far outstripped America’s, and which was determined to undercut American steel. It could produce steel cheaper and better than the US, and the low prices that Japan was offering were simply unbeatable by American manufacturers. As a result, many American steelworkers lost their jobs.

Here’s an article about the steel crisis from 2021 from the Alliance for American Manufacturing, which makes parallels to today’s situation between the US and China. In it, former steelworkers are quoted about what happened at the time:

The cost was cheaper, and their quality was better, too. We didn’t care about quality because we were the only game in town forever.

-Ed Cook, former president USW Local 3069

The U.S. steelmakers and, as time wore on, the automakers, were being outperformed by Japan and their superior technology advancements. Our employers didn’t invest in new technology until recognizing the concept of foreign competition was here to stay.

-Doug May, retired steelworker

The US tried to stop the bleeding with tariffs after accusing Japan of illegally “dumping” steel at unfairly subsidized below-market rates to gain export market share. But the tariffs didn’t stop the advancement of the technologically-superior Japanese steel industry, which remained strong even after their imposition.

The early-70s steel crisis was soon joined by the mid-to-late-70s oil crisis, where the US (and much of the Western world) saw oil shortages and high gas prices. At the time, American automakers mostly produced giant gas guzzlers, and Japanese automakers exploited this crisis by rapidly introducing smaller, more fuel efficient cars to America, just as the environmental movement was starting to gain steam and emissions regulations were starting to take effect.

Automakers responded by undergoing half-baked attempts to meet the standards while still trying to sell their gas guzzlers, by lobbying governments not to implement regulations, and begging for tariffs against competing Japanese autos. Not by actually rising to the challenge and making better vehicles, but rather by asking for the rules to be changed so they could get a free win by doing nothing new.

Eventually, Japan agreed to voluntary export restrictions and US automakers managed to get in gear and start making better cars. But as a result of this disruption in the 1970s, Japan is still considered one of the premier manufacturing industries in the world (automotive and otherwise), and has held the crown of the largest auto-exporting country on the globe for decades.

Between preparation, determination, and opportunity, Japan was able to gain a lasting lead.

Does any of this sound familiar?

China is the new Japan

Well, Japan was the world’s largest auto exporter… until now. It depends on how you count it, but Japan was likely dethroned by China as the world’s largest car exporter in the past year.

All of China’s effort to build EV manufacturing bore fruit – while the country was initially slow to adopt EVs, in 2023 it had a whopping 37% EV market share (up from 5% in 2020 and .84% in 2015), leapfrogging several early adopter nations. But EV manufacturing has grown even faster, with Chinese EV production outpacing domestic demand and exports rising rapidly in recent years as well.

Why did this happen? It turns out, Japanese industry is acting similarly to US industry at the moment, in that it is dragging its feet on electric vehicles (in fact, even moreso than US manufacturers are). European manufacturers, too, are trying to slow the transition down. Automakers are even cutting production plans in a rapidly growing EV market, possibly in a cynical move to influence regulations, even though it’s clear their targets are too low already.

While Biden has pushed for stronger emissions standards, automakers seem determined to lobby against progress, to give themselves a false sense of security that they can take their sweet time in transitioning to EVs.

But regardless of how much automakers kick and scream about needing to build something other than massive gas guzzling land yachts, technology and world industry will continue their inexorable advancement. The industry can catch up, or it can continue dragging its feet and moving slower than its competition, somehow hoping to catch up from the losing position it’s already in.

None of this kicking and screaming is happening in China.

As mentioned above, Chinese government has focused heavily on securing materials and on encouraging upstart EV makers (with a total of either $29 billion or $173 billion in subsidies from 2009-2022, depending on whose numbers you accept, either of which are less than the hundreds of billions in subsidy allocated by the US in the Inflation Reduction Act, or the $7 trillion global subsidy for fossil fuels).

And Chinese EV makers aren’t playing a silly game of limiting their own commitments in order to push a myth of falling sales (that said, Chinese dealer associations were granted a mere 6-month pause in regulations responding to a glut of unsellable gas cars – while also demanding that automakers stop building noncompliant vehicles immediately). Instead, they’re building cars as fast as they can, selling them as fast as they can, and exporting them in as many ships as they can get their hands on – to the point where they’re even building ships of their own.

This has led to accusations that China is “dumping” EVs on overseas markets, with Europe – which also subsidizes its own EV industry – considering retroactive tariffs. The US is also set to announce a 4x increase in existing tariffs against Chinese EVs. The irony is, if Chinese taxpayers are subsidizing manufacturing before sending those cars overseas, that represents a wealth transfer from Chinese taxpayers to American ones. And another irony: China has so often been criticized for not doing enough on climate change, and now we’re criticizing them of doing too much, both with EVs and solar.

This all sounds quite similar to the situation with Japan in the 70s.

But just as with Japan, simply blocking out better options won’t kick the West’s industry into gear. On the contrary, it will make our industry more complacent. And we’re already seeing that happening, as automakers keep begging governments to let them continue their unsustainable business models even as competition looms.

Do tariffs work?

But that’s just the thing, tariffs don’t generally work. We saw how they failed to forestall Japan, but there are many other examples showing their ineffectiveness or weird side effects, and economists generally agree that they are a poor measure to help domestic industry. Some company leadership favors the idea of tariffs, while other (perhaps more sober) leaders do not.

On the one hand, it could help domestic auto jobs, because free trade for Chinese EVs could result in a race to the bottom for auto manufacturing. And it could result in Chinese companies trying to set up manufacturing in the US to avoid tariffs – which could help US auto jobs, but these moves would likely spark a whole new round of controversy when announced.

But on the other hand, China is likely to implement retaliatory tariffs which will hurt US workers (for example, soybean tariffs which ruined the US soybean industry in 2018 – and resulted in more soybean demand from Brazil, which led to extensive clearcutting and fires in the Amazon). And the nature of today’s globalized economy and complex supplier relationships around the world can result in a lot of chaos when a major player implements a major tariff.

So in the end, US jobs likely won’t benefit overall, and US consumers will simply be denied a chance to buy cheap new EVs from China – like, for example, the excellent Volvo EX30. The EX30 is currently made in Geely’s China factory and starts at around $35k even after the 25% tariff.

A 100% tariff would bring it to a starting price of ~$54k instead (unless or until Geely moves production out of China, something BYD has also considered). The EX30 also happens to be one of the only small EVs that will be available in the US in the near term, so a tariff would further doom US consumers to the plague of SUVs that has befallen us.

By raising prices of vehicles that could undercut US autos, what this means is that inflation – the price of goods for US consumers, which includes autos – will increase. Cars will be more expensive as US manufacturers will have less competition, less reason to bring costs down, and less reason to offer reasonably-sized models. We’ll be stuck with the expensive land yachts that US automakers have been punting at us for so many years. People will continue to accuse EVs of being too expensive – as a result of policy that directly makes them so.

Meanwhile, one of Biden’s signature legislative wins, the Inflation Reduction Act, does include a different type of protectionist provision that seems to have accomplished its goals. It offers tax credits to EV purchasers, as long as those EVs include domestically-sourced components and are assembled in North America. This lowers the effective price of EVs, helping buyers, and stimulates investment in US manufacturing as well.

As a result of this and Biden’s previous Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, $209 billion has been invested in new or expanded factory projects, which will create 241,000 EV jobs in America. So it’s not impossible to incentivize domestic production – but smart industrial policy and subsidies will generally work better than unnecessary trade wars.

The politics factor

Of course there is a large short-term factor to this decision: the US election, which is just a few months out.

In this election, President Biden is running against a candidate who has no issue being loudly racist, and channels that racism into protectionist trade measures. The US’ current 25% tariff against China was implemented by him in 2018, and a centerpiece of his policy promises revolve around extending these short-sighted measures.

This trade policy is not made out of a consideration of what will be best for the auto industry or the US, but rather is a populist way to seize on Sinophobia, scapegoating the US’ main geopolitical competitor for various social ills happening domestically.

But that sort of sentiment is popular. US sentiment towards China is at record lows, making it a popular target for scapegoating. The sharp turn downwards in recent years is likely influenced by the loud scapegoating from Mr Trump, though it has affected voters across the party identification spectrum.

So Biden’s decision to increase tariffs on Chinese EVs may end up being popular, regardless of its positive or negative effects – after all, Trump’s previous round hurt the US economy, but was still popular.

Protectionism is, after all, historically popular with industrial unions. Biden has secured support from the UAW, a group that has been racking up a lot of impressive wins lately, and wants to expand union power further (for which it has the support of the President). UAW has asked for higher tariffs, and Biden has taken their advice before.

But it is also good to remember that this election is indeed important. While President Biden’s tariff policy mirrors that of Mr. Trump, Biden’s overall environmental policy does stand out as head and shoulders above the destructive, ill-considered nonsense we saw from the EPA under fossil fuel advocates Scott Pruitt and Andrew Wheeler.

On EVs specifically, Mr. Trump has already begged for $1 billion in bribes from oil companies (soon after scrambling to make bond in his half-billion-dollar fraud case), promising that if they give him these bribes, he would try again to kill electric vehicles (which he failed at last time) – in a move that would actually benefit the Chinese auto industry, and would harm US consumers’ health and pocketbooks.

So while this EV tariff increase doesn’t seem like a great idea, the alternative is, somehow, much worse. Isn’t that just the story of US politics in a nutshell.

But will the tariff change minds? While tariffs are popular, Trump has associated himself so closely with protectionist trade policy that voters with a thirst for protectionism seem more likely to vote for the candidate that has done more to shout his bombastic racist ideas from the rooftops.

It does seem that, with anti-Chinese sentiment at an all time high, any mention of China short-circuits a certain percentage of the electorate. Despite the demonstrably positive effect that Biden’s EV policy has produced in terms of investment in US EV manufacturing, that very same policy is often ignorantly criticized for helping China – which it does not do. Just have a look in the comments below, we’re sure a number of people who did not get this far into the article will echo exactly this incorrect sentiment.

But that’s a hard thing to explain, which has taken me thousands of words already (sorry) to merely scratch the surface of. The simplicity of “China bad” is a lot more comforting and simple to accept, despite lacking nuance.

How do we beat China? Not by tariffs, but by trying harder

Apologies for taking so long to get around to the point, but I hope that after laying out the actions China has taken to grow its EV industry, the history of foreign entrants into the auto industry, the effectiveness of tariffs, and the effectiveness of other trade policies and the politics behind them, the conclusion of how to go forward is already clear.

In order to beat China, we need to stop messing around with comforting but ill-considered policies that won’t work, and instead commit ourselves to the massive industrial shift that we need in order to catch up with a country that has already been doing so for over a decade.

We cannot do this by moving slower than a target that is already ahead of us. We have to move faster. And the West doesn’t get there by taking $1 billion in bribes to tank domestic industry, by softening targets or backtracking on EV plans. In particular, having one party that actively opposes any attempt to prepare the US auto industry for the future is certainly not helpful. This back-and-forth is not happening in China – they are committed.

The US auto industry has become accustomed to offering huge, expensive gas guzzlers, and to being “the only game in town.” But that didn’t work for the US in the 70s, and it won’t work now.

One of the most common criticisms of EVs is their unaffordability, but the BYD Seagull will cost under $10k (domestically) and the sporty Xiaomi SU7 is about $30k. That might be hard to compete with, but the US has already seen a cheap, great EV in the form of the workmanlike Chevy Bolt, which cost under $20k new after incentives before production ended. So it’s possible, and just because it’s hard doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do it.

Even if prices on small Chinese EVs are unattainable, the way to solve that is through smart industrial and materials policy (as China has spent years on and we’ve only just started), through targeted subsidy to a new and important industry (which we’re doing, though republicans want to eliminate that), and by perhaps redirecting tax breaks that currently encourage giant vehicles to stop encouraging huge gas guzzlers and instead encourage right-sized EVs (and end other policies like the EPA footprint rule which EPA is finally doing something about).

Then there’s the little issue of massive implicit subsidies to fossil fuels, costing the US economy $700 billion per year. The solution to that is to put a price on pollution, as supported by virtually all economists and a majority of Americans in every state, which would help to incentivize cleaner autos and disincentivize dirtier ones. And all of this is necessary to confront climate change, which we can do alongside taking actions to ensure we are ready for the future of automobiles.

So, if you’ll forgive me for taking this apparently unpopular anti-tariff stance, I think it’s clear that simply doubling the price of the competition isn’t the best way to ensure US auto stays competitive. It won’t help US consumers, it likely won’t have a net positive effect on US jobs (across sectors), it will lull industry into a false sense of security, it doesn’t help the environment, and perhaps least important but still worth mention, it violates the oft-repeated-but-never-honestly-held principle that government should “avoid picking winners and losers.”

Instead, lets focus on encouraging the new tech and discouraging the old tech, and moving quickly to beat China at their own game. If we want to pick winners, then why don’t we pick us.

This is how we get the American auto industry, a jewel in the crown of America for more than a century, into competitive shape for the future. We should have been doing more earlier, but as the famous (possibly Chinese) proverb says: “the best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago, the second best time is today.”

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Humans step up as Texas steps back from autonomous trucking

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Humans step up as Texas steps back from autonomous trucking

Texas technology firm Aurora made headlines earlier this month by launching the first fully autonomous freight service in the US – but those celebrations may have been premature. According to the company’s CEO, human operators are back in the saddle.

In a blog post written by Aurora CEO, Chris Urmson, the company said the decision to put a human operator back behind the wheel of its tech-boosted Peterbilt Class 8 semi trucks was a result of pressure from the truck manufacturer’s parent company PACCAR. PACCAR apparently wanted a human in place, “because of certain prototype parts in their base vehicle platform.”

In Urmson’s own words:

A core part of our strategy has always been building a strong ecosystem of partners across the industry — from OEMs to logistics providers to regulators. These partnerships are essential to delivering a safe, scalable, commercial product.

One of those partners, PACCAR, requested we have a person in the driver’s seat, because of certain prototype parts in their base vehicle platform. We are confident this is not required to operate the truck safely based on the exhaustive testing (covering nearly 10,000 requirements and 2.7 million tests) and analysis that populates our safety case. PACCAR is a long-time partner and, after much consideration, we respected their request and are moving the observer, who had been riding in the back of some of our trips, from the back seat to the front seat. This observer will not operate the vehicle — the Aurora Driver will continue to be fully responsible for all driving tasks, including pulling over to a safe location if required. And we’ve shown we can do that safely, with the Aurora Driver operating for more than 6,000 driverless miles along our commercial launch lane between Dallas and Houston. This change has no impact on our near, mid and long-term development plans.

CHRIS URMSON, AURORA CEO

The re-introduction of human operators comes just as Texas State lawmakers are reviewing House Bill 4402 – a proposed law just passed out of the Texas House Committee on Transportation and would require trained human operators in autonomous vehicles, effectively banning fully self driving semi trucks in Texas.

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“Requiring a human operator in a driverless truck isn’t unreasonable — it’s common sense,” says Brent Taylor, President of Teamsters Joint Council 80 in Dallas, Texas, and Southern Region International Vice President. Adding, that, “there are hundreds of thousands of Texans who turn a key for a living. They have mortgages, medical bills, and families to support. We can’t let out-of-state billionaires steal their jobs with reckless automation. We must protect their livelihoods by passing this critical bill into law.”

The Teamsters have supported a number of bills nationwide that require human operators in autonomous commercial vehicles, including two such bills that have passed both houses in California, only to be vetoed by Governor Gavin Newsom.

Electrek’s Take


Aurora “driverless” semi truck; via Aurora.

A national driver and equipment operator shortage continues to make headlines, but companies would rather avoid talking about operator pay plummeting – opting, instead, to invest big money into self-driving and autonomous technology to bridge the gap.

I remain convinced that we could solve that operator shortage by taking some of the billions being funneled into “self driving” and spent it on operators’ salaries. Heck, while operator salaries have increased about 24% since 1978, the CEOs at the truck and trucking companies have seen their pay soar dramatically, increasing over 1,000% in the same period. (!) You can’t say that last bit too loud, though: those guys are president now.

Go get ’em, Texas.

SOURCE | IMAGES: Aurora.


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Bollinger Motors circles the drain as court cases, debts pull it down [update]

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Bollinger Motors circles the drain as court cases, debts pull it down [update]

A federal court judge in Michigan has placed the once-promising electric truck brand Bollinger Motors’ assets into receivership following claims that the company’s owners still owe its founder, Robert Bollinger, more than $10 million.

UPDATE: Bollinger CEO, Bryan Chambers, says all is not lost.

Last week, we wrote about a multimillion dollar lawsuit that had thrown the Bollinger Brand into receivership, figuring that would be it for the startup electric truck brand. But our friends at Clean Trucking were able to connect with Bollinger CEO, Bryan Chambers, who says all is not lost.

“Receivership does not necessarily mean a company is headed toward liquidation,” explained Chambers. “In fact, receivership is often used to avoid liquidation and can be the best course of action to help a company move forward … we continue to sell and service our trucks and support our dealers and customers.”

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You can read more about Chambers’ comments here, and check out the original article (and official Michigan court filings) below.


Bollinger Motors first came to fame in the “draw a truck, get a billion dollars” stage of the EV revolution that saw Nikola rise to a higher market cap than Ford for a brief time. Robert Bollinger wasn’t able to capitalize quickly enough to get his trucks into production, though – and a late stage pivot to sell the brand to Mullen Automotive and launch a medium-duty commercial truck doesn’t appear to have been enough to save it.

Now, Automotive News is reporting on some of the more convoluted details of the deal, with Robert (for ease of distinguishing the man from the brand) claiming that Mullen Automotive owes him more than $10 million for a loan he made to the company in 2024.

Mullen’s response was perfectly clear: they didn’t even bother to show up to court.

Bollinger claims that at least two suppliers are also suing the company for unpaid debts. As such, the Honorable Terrence G. Berg has put the Bollinger brand into receivership, and its assets have been frozen in preparation for everything being liquidated. Worse, for Bollinger, the official court filings reveal a company that is really very much doing not awesome:

The testimony and evidence—which Defendant’s counsel conceded accurately reflected Defendant’s finances—showed that Defendant is in crisis. For months Defendant has owed more than twenty million dollars to suppliers, contractors, service providers, and owners of physical space. These debts are owed to parties who are critical for Defendant’s functioning. CEO Bryan Chambers testified that Defendant was locked out of its production facilities on May 5, 2025, and that the owner of the production facilities was seeking to permanently evict Defendant. The Court heard that Defendant had been prevented from accessing its critical manufacturing accounting system for a short time at the end of April 2025, before making a partial payment to restart services.

US DISTRICT COURT EASTERN DISTRICT OF MICHIGAN

I’m not sure if you caught all that, but Bollinger’s CEO has been locked out of the company’s facilities and is currently getting evicted, the company is more than $20 million in debt, and that debt is owed to people Bollinger absolutely needs in order to keep going.

You can read the full court decision, which I’ve embedded here, below. Once you’ve taken it all in, feel free to rush into the comments to say you told me so, since I really thought hoped the Bollinger B1 had a shot. Silly me.

Bollinger v. Bollinger case

SOURCES: Automotive News, Justia, Yahoo!.

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At Trump’s $148 million meme coin dinner, ‘the food sucked’ and security was lax, attendee says

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At Trump's 8 million meme coin dinner, 'the food sucked' and security was lax, attendee says

Crypto investor Nicholas Pinto attends President Donald Trump’s gala dinner for people who spent the most money on Trump’s meme coin, $TRUMP, in a contest, at Trump National Golf Club in Potomac Falls, Virginia, May 22, 2025.

Nicholas Pinto

The price of President Donald Trump‘s meme coin plunged 16% as of Friday morning, just hours after he hosted a black-tie gala at his Virginia golf club for its biggest buyers — an elite crowd that spent a combined $148 million on the token for the chance to be there.

It was billed as “the most exclusive invitation in the world.”

Among the 220 attendees were crypto influencers, industry executives such as Sandy Carter of Unstoppable Domains, and former NBA star Lamar Odom, who used the occasion to praise Trump as “the greatest president” and promote his own token, $ODOM.

The top 25 wallets were promised a private reception and guided tour. Others, such as 25-year-old Nicholas Pinto — whose dad drove him to the event in his Lamborghini — left underwhelmed and still hungry.

“The food sucked,” Pinto said. “Wasn’t given any drinks other than water or Trump’s wine. I don’t drink, so I had water. My glass was only filled once.”

Trump made only a brief appearance, Pinto said. “He didn’t talk to any of the 220 guests — maybe the top 25,” he said.

All in, the president was there for 23 minutes, Pinto said. Trump delivered a brief address rehashing old crypto talking points then left on a helicopter before taking any questions or pictures with his meme coin contest winners, he said.

Phones weren’t locked in RFID pouches, and security was lax, according to Pinto.

“Once Trump left, they didn’t really worry about anything else,” Pinto added.

Contest winners who spent the most on $TRUMP meme coins added their signatures to a poster-sized printout of the leaderboard at a gala dinner at Trump National Golf Club in Potomac Falls, Virginia, May 22, 2025.

Nicholas Pinto

The crowd’s opulence was on full display.

“Richard Mille watches weren’t even rare,” Pinto said. “I saw at least 16 people wearing them. I never see that unless I’m at a high-end restaurant in Miami or Dubai.”

But the vibe was more muted than expected, he said: “Lots of people didn’t even hold the coin anymore. They were checking their phones during dinner to see if the price moved.”

CNBC has reached out to Trump representatives for comment on the dinner and attendees.

Protests

For lawmakers and regulators, the dinner set off alarm bells.

The #1 token holder was Chinese-born crypto mogul Justin Sun, who is currently facing Securities and Exchange Commission fraud charges that were recently paused, with the agency citing “the public interest.”

Sun holds over $22 million in the $TRUMP token and another $75 million in World Liberty Financial’s native token.

“As the top holder of $TRUMP and proud supporter of President Trump, it was an honor to attend the Trump Gala Dinner,” Sun posted on Friday. “Thank you @POTUS for your unwavering support of our industry!”

Outside the gates of Trump National Golf Club in Potomac Falls, Virginia, about a hundred protesters gathered, according to NBC News. Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., joined them, backing a new End Crypto Corruption Act with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.

Signs read “Crypto Corruption” and “Trump is a traitor.”

Crypto on Capitol Hill

“The Trump family activity in the memecoin space makes my work in Congress more complicated,” Rep. French Hill, R-Ark., told CNBC on Friday.

Hill, who’s leading negotiations on a bipartisan stablecoin regulation bill known as the GENIUS Act, called the gala “a distraction from the good work we need to do.”

Now, the GENIUS Act is at risk.

Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., recently added a controversial rider to the bill that would cap credit card late fees — what’s seen as a poison pill that could alienate banking allies and stall final approval.

President Donald Trump speaks at a dinner for meme coin contest winners at Trump National Golf Club in Potomac Falls, Virginia, May 22, 2025.

Nicholas Pinto

On Thursday night as the meme coin contest dinner was underway, a bloc of Senate Democrats announced they’d be pushing for a new provision that would ban presidents and senior officials from profiting off crypto ventures while in office — a direct challenge to the Trump-linked stablecoin USD1 that launched in the spring.

In Washington, there’s growing concern that political infighting over Trump’s crypto ventures could derail the stablecoin bill altogether. That poses an even bigger risk.

According to The Wall Street Journal, major banks including JPMorgan, Bank of America and Citi are in early talks to issue a unified digital dollar to compete with Tether, the foreign-controlled stablecoin that now commands over 60% of global market share.

Those plans hinge on legal clarity.

If the GENIUS Act stalls, the U.S. could lose its window to regain ground in the global race for digital payments.

The White House has tried to draw a line between Trump the president and Trump the private businessman.

“The president is attending it in his personal time. It is not a White House dinner,” press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters when pressed on attendee transparency.

President Trump holds controversial private dinner for top investors in his meme coin

The administration declined to release a guest list. But blockchain data — and a patchwork of guest photos — tell part of the story.

A Bloomberg News analysis found that all but six of the top 25 wallets used foreign exchanges, ostensibly off-limits to U.S. users. More than half of the top 220 wallets were linked to similar offshore platforms.

One Nasdaq-listed penny stock, Freight Technologies, disclosed in an SEC filing that it spent $2 million on Trump’s token to push U.S.-Mexico trade policy. It didn’t make the cut for the dinner — finishing 250th.

Since its January debut, the $TRUMP coin has generated more than $324 million in trading fees. Roughly 80% of the $TRUMP token supply is controlled by the Trump Organization and affiliates, according to the project’s website.

WLFI, the Trump’s parallel token, has sold $550 million in two token sales.

President Trump holds meme coin dinner

Still, White House AI and crypto czar David Sacks remained bullish on “significant bipartisan support” for stablecoin legislation.

“We already have over $200 billion in stablecoins — it’s just unregulated,” Sacks told CNBC’s “Closing Bell Overtime” on Wednesday. “If we provide the legal clarity and legal framework for this, I think we could create trillions of dollars of demand for our Treasurys practically overnight, very quickly.”

“We have every expectation now that it’s going to pass,” added Sacks, though he didn’t answer a question about concerns from Democrats that there aren’t sufficient safeguards in place to keep the president and his family from profiting from legislation.

While Sacks sold $200 million in crypto-related holdings before taking his White House job, according to a disclosure filing, Trump and his family have been leaning into building a crypto empire.

The Trumps are financial backers of World Liberty Financial, which is behind the USD1 stablecoin that is backed by Treasurys and dollar deposits.

Abu Dhabi’s MGX investment fund recently pledged $2 billion in USD1 to Binance, the world’s largest digital assets exchange. It’s the company’s largest-ever investment made in crypto.

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President Trump hosts meme coin megadonors amid conflict of interest claims

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