One day after the House Select Committee on China sounded the alarm over China-based Unitree selling humanoid robots on Amazon to U.S. consumers, a new Politico report states Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick held a closed-door meeting with top U.S. executives and signaled that the Trump administration is considering strong action against subsidized robotics imports from China.
Lutnick and other Trump administration officials held a roundtable with executives from SpaceX, Boston Dynamics, JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Siemens, Rockwell Automation, and other firms, with discussions focused on reversing decades of manufacturing offshoring and rebuilding the industrial base needed to produce semiconductors, robotics, and other key components inside the U.S.
One focus centered around China's state-backed robotics industry as a national security threat, with fears that Beijing could use subsidies to dominate global robotics markets before U.S. manufacturers gain market share.
Chinese robot dogs and humanoids already face high U.S. tariffs, but the administration may soon deliver a stern blow to counter those inflows.
"We don't want state-subsidized robotics attacking us in America. This is the arms [race] that is coming, robotic arms are coming," Lutnick said, according to notes from the meeting provided to Politico. "We need to make sure they're produced in America, so we're going to study those right now."
One person who was in attendance stated, "The whole idea that what we're going to end up with is an American brain with a Chinese body is a very, very bad strategic plan."
The problem with the U.S. humanoid supply chain is that it relies on rare earths, actuators, and specialty parts to produce these robots - areas where the U.S. lags severely behind China.
One way for the U.S. to scale robot production - something China is already doing - is to have automakers produce these humanoids, as there is a major overlap between vehicle and humanoid components, including AI software, motors, cameras, sensors, and manufacturing processes. This is why Tesla pivoted to humanoids.
To sum up, the message is clear: the days of buying a Unitree humanoid robot or robotic dog on Amazon may be numbered.
As we have noted, the AI race is evolving from chip stacks in data centers to the physical world, and humanoid robots are the next major frontier.