General Motors is making money again, but its chief executive is sounding more nervous than triumphant. Mary Barra is warning that a wave of cheap Chinese electric cars is lining up at North America’s doorstep, and that General Motors cannot afford to meet that threat on a tilted playing field. Her message is blunt: if governments invite those vehicles in without guardrails, the region’s auto industry and its workers could be undercut before they have a chance to adapt.
That tension is coming to a head in Canada, where a new deal to import low cost Chinese EVs has turned into a test case for how far North America is willing to go in the name of affordability. For Barra, the risk is not just losing sales, it is watching decades of manufacturing investment and national security planning get traded away for short term price relief.
Why Barra Sees Canada’s China EV Deal As A “Slippery Slope”
Mary Barra has been unusually direct about what she thinks Canada is getting wrong. At an internal meeting, the General Motors CEO told employees she “cannot explain why the decision was made in Canada,” describing the country’s move to allow more low tariff Chinese EV imports as a fundamental shift in trade policy that could reshape the market in the United States and Canada alike. Her warning, echoed in multiple briefings, is that Canada Allowing Chinese EV imports at lower tariffs will not stay a contained experiment for long. Once those vehicles arrive, they can influence pricing, consumer expectations, and even cross border flows in ways that are hard to reverse.
Her choice of language has been consistent. In public and private, Barra has called Canada’s lower tariffs on China EV shipments a “slippery slope,” arguing that if one North American country opens the door, the entire region’s industrial strategy is at risk. One report on the China EV tariff decision notes that she sees a path where incremental concessions quickly become a “very slippery slope” for domestic producers. In her view, the issue is not just about one trade deal, it is about whether North American governments are prepared to defend the manufacturing base they spent decades building.
Behind the rhetoric sits a concrete policy shift. Canada has agreed to let in an allotment of up to 49,000 Chinese EVs a year, a volume that might sound modest but represents a meaningful slice of Canada’s total annual vehicle sales. Barra has framed those Cheap Chinese imports as “shortsighted,” warning that the short term benefit of lower sticker prices could come at the expense of North American jobs and even national security on the continent.
Cheap Chinese EVs, A Brutal Price War, And GM’s Own EV Stumbles
Barra’s anxiety is rooted in what she has already seen in China. As CEO, Mary Barra has watched the Chinese electric vehicle market turn into a knife fight, with so much EV competition in China that it has triggered a price war she describes as unsustainable. In her telling, the sheer number of players and the level of state support have pushed prices to levels that would be hard for any unsubsidized manufacturer to match, a point she has made while discussing General Moto operations in that country.
She has gone further in other conversations, calling the Chinese EV price war a “race to the bottom” on both pricing and subsidies. Speaking with Fortune editor in chief Alyson Shontell, Barra argued that the combination of aggressive pricing and heavy support has made it nearly impossible for legacy automakers to compete on cost alone. She has pointed to Chinese EVs priced around $20,000 as evidence of how far that market has moved, and why she believes stronger trade tools are needed to protect American manufacturers from a similar squeeze at home.
The irony is that General Motors is not exactly in fighting shape on EVs. Earlier this year, the company disclosed that it would record a $7.1 billion loss tied largely to scaling back its electric ambitions and writing down plants and assembly lines. A separate breakdown of its EV business noted that GM plans major production cuts in 2026 even as it adds 100,000 new EV customers, with Key Points stressing that many of the Losses were self inflicted through cancellations and delays rather than the cars themselves.
Investors, for now, are giving Barra some room. Guidance for 2026 has GM targeting Net Income of $10.3 billion at the low end, with analysts highlighting that EBIT guidance and Why Analysts Are Bullish reflect confidence that the core business can keep throwing off cash even as EV headwinds persist. On a recent earnings call, executives pointed to a China NEV Turnaround, saying that In China, GM’s New Energy Vehicle, or NEV, business is finally emerging as a bright spot after years of pressure. That success abroad only sharpens the contrast with the fragile EV rollout at home, and helps explain why Barra is so intent on keeping a flood of ultra cheap imports from resetting the rules of the game in her most important market.
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