Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), a prospective 2028 presidential candidate, is heading to Canada this weekend to huddle with Prime Minister Mark Carney and other center-left politicians at a summit organized by the Center for American Progress. The stated purpose: figuring out "how to battle right-wing politicians on affordability."

The trip, first detailed by Breitbart News citing Semafor's reporting, places Slotkin alongside former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, another possible Democratic White House hopeful, at a gathering where the host nation's leader has spent the last year pulling Canada away from the United States and toward Beijing.

That last detail is the one Michigan voters should pay close attention to. Slotkin represents a state whose economy runs on auto manufacturing. And the prime minister she is meeting just opened Canada's doors to tens of thousands of Chinese-made electric vehicles, the very cars that American lawmakers in both parties have warned could gut the U.S. auto industry and serve as rolling surveillance platforms for the Chinese Communist Party.

Carney's China pivot

On January 16, 2026, Carney announced what his government described as a "new strategic partnership" with China. A press release from the prime minister's office declared that "China presents enormous opportunities for Canada." The agreement includes a provision allowing up to 49,000 Chinese electric vehicles into the Canadian market at a most-favored-nation tariff rate of just 6.1 percent.

Ottawa said the arrangement would spur Chinese joint-venture investment in Canada's automotive sector and expand the country's EV supply chain. The first shipment arrived quickly. On May 7, Geely-owned Lotus shipped 18 Chinese-made Eletre SUVs from Shanghai to Canada, as ElectricVehicles.com reported.

Carney has been blunt about his reasoning. In an April 2026 address following his Liberal Party victory, he argued that many of Canada's "former strengths" tied to close economic relations with America "have become weaknesses." He said "the U.S. has changed and we must respond" and claimed Canada could no longer rely on "one foreign partner."

In plain terms: the prime minister Slotkin is visiting has decided that the path forward for Canada runs through Beijing, not Washington.

Bipartisan alarm over Chinese EVs

The security concerns are not speculative, and they are not partisan. A December 2025 congressional hearing titled "Trojan Horse: China's Auto Threat to America" featured warnings from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.

House Select Committee on China Chairman John Moolenaar warned that Chinese-made vehicles could function as "potential spy platforms with a kill switch inside." He said modern vehicles equipped with cameras, sensors, microphones, and internet connectivity systems could allow Beijing to collect sensitive information or disrupt transportation systems during a crisis.

Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL), a Democrat, was equally direct. He said China had used "a familiar playbook of forced joint ventures, intellectual property theft, overproduction and dumping to dominate the auto sector." He warned that Chinese electric vehicles were often priced "below what it would even cost to make a car." That kind of predatory pricing is designed to destroy competitors, including the Michigan autoworkers Slotkin claims to represent.

The concerns extend beyond economics. Former British diplomat Charles Parton described cellular modules used in connected vehicles as "the gateway" to modern transportation systems and warned that China already supplies a large share of those components globally. Automotive software executive Peter Ludwig compared Chinese vehicles to "the same kinds of risks in the physical world that TikTok represents in the digital world."

When a bipartisan congressional hearing, intelligence experts, and foreign diplomats all agree that Chinese EVs are a national security threat, a sitting U.S. senator might think twice before cozying up to the leader who just welcomed 49,000 of them. Particularly a senator from the state with the most to lose.

The summit's real agenda

CAP President Neera Tanden told Semafor the meeting would examine a pointed question: "How do we fight the authoritarian right?" She argued Democrats could learn from Carney, who she said moved Canada's Liberal Party "to the right on some issues" and "surged in popularity."

That framing is worth unpacking. Tanden is describing Carney's political repositioning as a model for Democrats, even as Carney's actual governing record includes forging a strategic partnership with an authoritarian communist government. The "authoritarian right" apparently does not include the Chinese Communist Party in CAP's analysis.

The Center for American Progress itself carries baggage. Breitbart News reported in July 2025 that CAP has received millions of dollars in annual funding from George Soros's Open Society Foundations. That a Soros-funded think tank is organizing an overseas strategy session for prospective Democratic presidential candidates is the kind of detail that explains why many voters view the party's leadership class as more accountable to global progressive donors than to the communities they represent.

The timing of the Canada trip is notable for another reason. Former President Barack Obama is visiting Toronto on Friday for a keynote speech hosted by Canada 2020, a Canadian think tank that says it promotes a "more just, inclusive and forward-thinking Canada." That back-to-back scheduling puts two of the Democratic Party's highest-profile figures in Canada within days of each other, a concentration of political energy directed not at solving problems at home, but at strategizing abroad.

Slotkin's record of provocation

This is not the first time Slotkin has drawn scrutiny for conduct that seems designed more for progressive audiences than for her Michigan constituents. She urged Democrats to "f***ing retake the flag" and appeared in a video telling military personnel they could "refuse illegal orders," saying she was concerned about the military being used "against American citizens."

When pressed on ABC's This Week, Slotkin acknowledged that, to her knowledge, Trump had not actually issued illegal orders. The gap between the incendiary video and that on-air admission is the kind of contradiction that erodes public trust. Former CIA operations officer Bryan Dean Wright said on Fox News that Slotkin "knew exactly what she was putting together with her little propaganda video."

The pattern is familiar. Democratic lawmakers have faced increasing pressure over actions that critics describe as deliberately provocative, a dynamic that has led Speaker Johnson to call for indictments of Democratic lawmakers accused of urging institutional defiance.

Slotkin's willingness to fly to another country to strategize against the sitting administration stands in contrast to the choices of other lawmakers who have broken with their own parties on principle. Sen. John Fetterman, for instance, has repeatedly broken with Democrats on matters ranging from Iran policy to border security, earning him criticism from his own side but respect from voters who value independence over partisan conformity.

Michigan's stake

The auto industry is not an abstraction in Michigan. It is the economic foundation of entire communities. When Carney opens Canada to 49,000 Chinese EVs at a 6.1 percent tariff, a rate that makes those vehicles competitive against North American-made cars, the supply chain effects ripple directly into Michigan plants and Michigan paychecks.

Chinese automakers, as Krishnamoorthi warned, price their vehicles below production cost to destroy competition. That is not free-market competition. It is state-subsidized economic warfare. And the senator from Michigan is spending her weekend with the man who just rolled out the welcome mat for it.

The security dimension compounds the economic threat. Vehicles loaded with cameras, sensors, and cellular connectivity modules, many of them manufactured in China, create what Moolenaar called platforms for surveillance and disruption. These are not theoretical risks. They were serious enough to warrant a titled congressional hearing and bipartisan alarm.

In an era when even routine Senate votes on election integrity expose deep divisions over national priorities, the question of who benefits from Chinese EV imports should be straightforward. American workers do not. American national security does not. Canadian consumers might get a cheaper car, until the industry that could have built it domestically no longer exists.

Strategy sessions and accountability

There is nothing illegal about a senator traveling to Canada. There is nothing illegal about attending a think-tank conference. But voters are entitled to ask what their elected representative is doing there, and whose interests the trip serves.

Slotkin is not traveling to Ottawa to negotiate on behalf of Michigan autoworkers. She is traveling to sit with a prime minister who has explicitly positioned Canada against the United States, who has opened his country's market to Chinese vehicles that threaten her constituents' livelihoods, and who is being promoted by a Soros-funded think tank as a model for how Democrats should win elections.

The summit's stated focus, "how to battle right-wing politicians on affordability", is itself revealing. Affordability is a real concern for American families. But the answer to high costs is not importing state-subsidized Chinese goods that undercut American workers. That is the opposite of affordability for the people who lose their jobs.

Lawmakers in both parties have occasionally broken with their own side when conscience demanded it. What Slotkin is doing is different. She is not breaking with her party. She is joining its most progressive institutional players on foreign soil to plan a political offensive, while the host government deepens ties with the very adversary that threatens her state's core industry.

Michigan voters sent Slotkin to Washington to fight for them. They did not send her to Canada to learn political strategy from a prime minister who just handed Beijing a foothold in North America's auto market. If she wants to battle for affordability, she can start by opposing the flood of Chinese EVs that her weekend host just invited across the border.

When your senator flies abroad to strategize with foreign leaders against the policies of her own government, the question is not whether she's allowed to go. The question is who she's really working for.