BYD sells a total of zero cars in the United States. And, despite everything, it has denounced the United States for its tariffs

Not a year ago and it seems like a thousand lives have passed. In case you don’t remember, I’ll give you some background: the United States and China went to war about a year ago. A trade war who left us images to remember, like the photo of Donald Trump with the “reciprocal tariffs” table either the penguins who will now have to pay for putting their products there. Assuming, of course, that the penguins knew how to design, develop, produce and sell products.

Beyond Pepín Tre’s own approaches, the truth is that we have been in tug-of-war between the United States and China for almost a year. In OctoberDonald Trump and Xi Jinping met to try to relieve tensions. It is one more of the chapters that has left us a most bizarre year in which, for example, China has been playing its own solitary tricks, redefining the origin of products, classifying them by their place of manufacture and not by the place of development or packaging and, thus, make the entry of chips accessible without lifting restrictions on other types of products.

The last chapter of this story seems to be being written by BYD. The Chinese company is not selling cars in the United States. And what has already been approved by Joe Biden before the entry of Donald Trump, with bans on the sale of all cars with Chinese software or hardware, it does not seem to make things easy for the Asian company either.

Despite this, BYD has made a tough decision: sue the United States. They believe that the tariffs they are paying are not legal. They doubt that the regulations used by Donald Trump allow tariffs to be imposed. And that is why they demand that all the money paid since April be returned to them.

But what money?

Much more than cars… although with cars in mind

As we have told you in Xatakathe Asian company is much more than a car producer. In fact, and this is part of its secret, BYD did not start out as a regular car manufacturer.

BYD, in addition to cars, produces batteries or heat pumps. Vertical integration is part of your secret to saving costs. From this evolution and opening new horizons, its automobile division was launched. But also buses and trucks. Because when BYD arrived in Europe it had already been there for many years selling their buses for our continent. And the same thing happens in the United States. It does not sell cars, but it does sell buses, trucks and batteries.

In fact, according to Reuters750 BYD employees work in the United States in its North American division. Up to four BYD subsidiaries from which buses, trucks, batteries and renewable energy systems come out are those that have filed their lawsuit in the United States Court of International Trade.

In it they defend that “the text of the IEEPA (the International Emergency Economic Powers Act on which the “reciprocal tariffs” policy was based) does not use the word “tariff” or any term of equivalent meaning.”

Since Donald Trump announced the tariffs that he was going to impose on practically everyone, doubts about their legality or otherwise have been on the table. The United States Government dusted off the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to move them forward, a rule of the Cold war. However, doubts about whether or not this rule should go through Congress were on the table from day one. Even the Senate has voted against the tariffs to some countries but the resolution is purely aesthetic.

Now, BYD claims that nowhere in the law does it specify that tariffs can be imposed on products coming from abroad. It is a theory supported by various companies that in recent months have also presented their own lawsuits in the same terms, such as Toyota, Costco or Prada, they point out in CarNewsChina.

The decision of the court in charge of the lawsuit is key because if it rules in favor of the companies, the United States would have to return all the money collected since April. But it would also open the door for products to be exported without these special tariffs being applied, they would simply have to comply with the tariffs that were already active before April 2025.

That is to say, At stake is not only money that BYD may have lost on the products it has sold there. At stake is also market entry which, with current tariffs, is almost impossible. Besides, Canada has opened the door to Chinese electric cars and Geely has dropped that their intention is also to sell their Chinese cars in the United States. The big question, as in the case of BYD, is how they intend to do it before the end of the decade with the restrictions that are currently imposed.

It is a question that neither BYD nor Geely have answered.

Photo | BYD and Joshua Hoehne

In Xataka | “They are going to regret it”: Canada has generated even more tension with the US by opening the door to Chinese electric cars