Anti-China protectionism backfiring on American carmakers’ EV plans: analyst. While Washington’s efforts to block Chinese electric vehicles (EVs) were originally intended to protect its domestic automotive industry, they have sparked concerns the strategy is hurting America’s carmaking competitiveness. With a lack of a coherent industrial policy discouraging long-term investment, the protectionist approach was backfiring on Detroit’s EV transition, said David Zhang, a macroeconomics and policy analyst at Trivium China, who added that EVs could be.