In January 2008, the American Trucking Associations rolled out the red carpet for a delegation from the China Road Transport Association.
The visitors, representing the Highway Transportation Administration Bureau, Beijing XiangLong Assets Management, and Guangxi Wuzhou Communications, spent two days meeting with ATA leadership and major carriers, including Con-way Freight, Roadway, and RoadLink. The agenda covered operations, truck safety regulations, driver training, federal and state tax structures, and environmental regulations.
“We are all part of a burgeoning global economy,” ATA President Bill Graves said at the time. “The Chinese understand that their national economy is directly linked to freight transportation and a supporting national infrastructure.”
The Chinese delegation was eager to learn how American trucking evolved from localized operations into a streamlined national and international logistics engine.
Seventeen years later, that friendly exchange looks different in hindsight.
The Pentagon Wakes Up
On January 2, 2025, the Department of Defense updated its list of “Chinese Military Companies” operating in the United States, adding COSCO Shipping, the fourth-largest ocean carrier in the world, along with its North American subsidiary and its Hong Kong-based financial branch.
The designation came under Section 1260H of the National Defense Authorization Act, which requires the Pentagon to identify companies linked to China’s People’s Liberation Army. COSCO was tagged because it transports military goods for the PLA and has participated in military drills preparing for a potential invasion of Taiwan.
COSCO operates joint venture container terminals at the ports of Los Angeles, Long Beach, and Seattle. The company moved nearly 40 million TEUs to and from U.S. ports. And according to a MITRE analysis published in February 2024, Chinese companies own or operate terminals in 100 ports across 60 countries.
Shanghai Zhenhua Heavy Industries Company, known as ZPMC, manufactures 70 percent of container cranes globally. Those cranes constitute 80 percent of the cranes in U.S. ports, including 10 Strategic Seaports designated by the Department of Defense for military deployments.
Then there’s LOGINK, China’s National Transportation and Logistics Public Information Platform. According to MITRE, global adoption of LOGINK provides the Chinese government with “significant visibility into shipping and supply chains, providing opportunities to spot vulnerabilities and track shipments of U.S. military cargo on commercial freight.”
The Chinese government can track U.S. military cargo moving on commercial freight.
The Farmland Problem
While the ports were being quietly penetrated, a parallel operation was underway across rural America.
In 2021, the Fufeng Group, a Chinese company with documented ties to the Chinese Communist Party, purchased 370 acres of farmland near Grand Forks Air Force Base in North Dakota. According to the United States-China Economic and Security Review Commission, Grand Forks has exceptional intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities, making the purchased land an ideal location for monitoring and intercepting military activity.
The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States determined it could not evaluate the transaction for national security risks because the Department of Defense had not listed the base as a sensitive site.
That gap has since been addressed, partially addressed. CFIUS rules now require approval for foreign purchases within 100 miles of the most sensitive military installations.
Chinese companies own nearly 10,000 acres of farmland in Polk County, Florida, near MacDill Air Force Base. Another 277 acres sit in San Diego County near Camp Pendleton. A Chinese energy company subsidiary bought land near Laughlin Air Force Base, the Air Force’s largest pilot training facility in southern Texas.
In May 2024, CFIUS forced a Chinese company called MineOne to divest its holdings in a crypto mining operation located within a mile of a Wyoming air base, but only after receiving a “public tip” about the purchase.
The legislative response is gaining momentum. The PASS Act, led by Senator Mike Rounds with support from Senate Majority Leader John Thune, would ban individuals and entities controlled by China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea from purchasing agricultural land near military installations. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins has said stopping Chinese farmland purchases near bases is at the “very, very top” of her priorities.
So, who is hauling America’s defense freight?
While Congress debates farmland restrictions and the Pentagon updates its blacklists, the evidence that our commercial driver vetting system has catastrophic gaps is piling up on American highways.
On December 9, 2025, a 54-year-old Chinese national named Yisong Huang rear-ended a tractor-trailer on I-40 in Tennessee while watching a video on his phone. The chain-reaction crash killed Kerry Smith, a 31-year-old American trucker. When the Tennessee Highway Patrol administered an English proficiency test, Huang failed it.
Huang entered the United States illegally through Mexico in 2023. He admitted to Border Patrol agents that he was a Chinese citizen who had crossed unlawfully. The Biden administration released him anyway and handed him work authorization papers and a Social Security card. Eight months before he killed Kerry Smith, New York issued him a Class B commercial driver’s license.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy didn’t mince words. “Joe Biden let millions of migrants flood into our country illegally,” he said. “His administration doled out the documentation these unqualified foreign drivers needed to obtain trucking licenses and operate 40-ton missiles on the highway.”
Duffy’s subsequent audit found that more than half of New York’s non-domiciled CDLs were issued illegally. He’s threatened to withhold $73 million in federal highway funds unless New York revokes them. California faces similar pressure. Since June 2025, more than 9,500 drivers have been placed out of service for failing English proficiency requirements that were on the books but unenforced for nearly a decade.
The USPS just announced it will phase out contracted drivers holding non-domiciled CDLs who haven’t been vetted by the Postal Inspection Service. That’s federal mail. Somebody finally asked the question.
If a Chinese national can enter illegally, get work papers, obtain a CDL, and drive a commercial vehicle across state lines without anyone checking whether he can read a road sign, what’s stopping someone with actual ties to Chinese state interests from doing the same thing?
We’re pulling drivers off the road for not speaking English. We’re not pulling them off for connections to companies on the Pentagon’s Chinese Military Companies list.
The Defense Freight Transportation Services contract, a $2.3 billion program managed by Crowley Solutions, moves U.S. Government cargo from thousands of suppliers through more than 40 major depots across the continental United States, Alaska, and Canada. The program encompasses all forms of surface transportation: less-than-truckload, full truckload, expedited, time-definite, and rail services.
Crowley’s website proudly notes that “the secure and timely transportation of government freight can be vital to national security and mission-critical operations.” Do we actually know who’s driving those trucks?
DOD contractors handling classified information require security clearances. The Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency conducts background investigations, and foreign-owned entities face additional scrutiny under Foreign Ownership, Control, or Influence regulations.
What about the subcontractors? The owner-operators? The freight brokers who dispatch loads?
According to the National Defense Authorization Act of 2024, the Department of Defense is prohibited from directly procuring goods and services from entities on the 1260H Chinese Military Companies list, but that prohibition does not take full effect until June 2026. The indirect prohibition extends to June 2027.
That’s 18 more months where the supply chain remains largely unvetted for Chinese military connections.
According to reporting from the Pulitzer Center, Chinese immigrants make up less than 2.3 percent of the 3.5 million truck drivers in the United States. Many of these drivers are legal immigrants who came to America seeking better opportunities. They work long hours, face language barriers, and struggle with the same issues every truck driver faces.
This isn’t about demonizing immigrant drivers. It’s about asking a fundamental question: In an era when the Pentagon is blacklisting COSCO, restricting Chinese farmland purchases near military bases, and investigating Chinese-made port cranes for espionage capabilities, why aren’t we scrutinizing who physically moves our military cargo?
We require HAZMAT endorsements for drivers hauling dangerous goods. We require TWIC cards for port access. We conduct background checks for drivers handling certain types of freight.
Do we have any systematic process to ensure that drivers hauling DOD freight, even non-classified freight, aren’t connected to entities that the Pentagon has designated as Chinese military companies?
Connect the Dots
Chinese state-owned COSCO operates terminals at our biggest ports. Chinese-made ZPMC cranes, present at 10 Strategic Seaports, have raised espionage concerns serious enough to prompt Congressional legislation. Chinese logistics platform LOGINK can track military cargo shipments. Chinese companies have purchased land near air bases with intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities. And the ATA was teaching Chinese transportation officials how American trucking works back in 2008.
Meanwhile, the trucking industry faces a chronic driver shortage. Carriers are desperate for qualified CDL holders. And nobody is systematically asking who actually climbs into the cab to haul freight to and from military installations.
Section 805 of the 2024 NDAA will eventually prohibit DOD from procuring end products and services from Chinese military companies. Section 851 of the 2025 NDAA goes further, prohibiting DOD from contracting with any company that employs lobbyists for entities on the 1260H list.
But trucking, the actual movement of physical goods, operates in the shadows of these regulations. A freight broker can dispatch a load. A motor carrier can subcontract to an owner-operator. Unless that owner-operator is directly contracting with DOD, the vetting requirements are minimal.
What Needs to Happen
The Senate Banking Committee, under Chairman Tim Scott, has introduced the Protect Our Bases Act, which requires CFIUS member agencies to update their lists of sensitive sites annually. The legislation would ensure that foreign land purchases near military, intelligence, and national laboratory facilities receive proper scrutiny.
That’s a start. But we need the same level of attention on the transportation side.
DOD should require all carriers, including subcontractors and owner-operators, hauling military freight to certify that they have no connections to entities on the 1260H Chinese Military Companies list.
FMCSA should establish a registry of carriers approved for defense freight, with background check requirements that go beyond standard CDL vetting.
Congress should require the Transportation Secretary to serve as a permanent voting member of CFIUS for any transaction involving freight and logistics companies that have access to defense supply chains.
The trucking industry itself, starting with ATA, needs to acknowledge that the world has changed since 2008. China is no longer just a trading partner, learning from American logistics expertise. It’s a strategic competitor that has systematically embedded itself in our port infrastructure, our farmland, and potentially our freight networks.
We spend billions defending against cyber intrusions, foreign espionage, and supply chain vulnerabilities in semiconductors and telecommunications. But we’ve largely ignored the most basic vulnerability of all: the truck that pulls up to the loading dock at a military depot.
Every day, thousands of trucks move freight to and from DOD installations across America. We trust that those drivers are who they say they are. We trust that the carriers are legitimate. We trust that our adversaries haven’t found the simplest possible way to monitor, disrupt, or compromise our military logistics.
Maybe that trust is well-placed. Maybe the system is more secure than it appears.
Given everything we now know about Chinese penetration of American ports, farmland, and logistics platforms, shouldn’t we at least ask the question? Because right now, nobody seems to be asking.
Timeline: China and American Transportation Infrastructure
2008: ATA welcomes China Road Transport Association delegation; Chinese officials meet with Con-way Freight, Roadway, and RoadLink to study U.S. trucking operations
2020: Chinese energy company subsidiary purchases land near Laughlin Air Force Base in Texas
2021: Fufeng Group purchases 370 acres near Grand Forks Air Force Base in North Dakota
2023: Biden administration issues new CFIUS rule requiring approval for foreign land purchases within 100 miles of sensitive military installations
2024 (February): MITRE publishes analysis warning of Chinese technology influence in U.S. seaports and visibility into military cargo shipments
2024 (May): CFIUS forces Chinese company MineOne to divest crypto mining operation near Wyoming air base
2025 (January 2): Pentagon adds COSCO Shipping to Section 1260H Chinese Military Companies list
2025 (January): PASS Act gains Senate support to ban Chinese farmland purchases near military bases
2026 (June): DOD prohibition on directly procuring from 1260H entities takes effect
2027 (June): DOD prohibition on indirectly procuring from 1260H entities takes effect
