It followed a letter earlier in the week from a bipartisan group of Representatives urging the Administration to investigate and limit the operations of such firms in the US.

“Whether we are talking about hardware or software, in the same way there are concerns around telecom or TikTok, there are concerns around transportation technologies,” Buttigieg said in an interview with Reuters.

The letter, which was sent by Representatives Tim Walberg (R-MI), Debbie Dingell (D-MI), Bob Latta (R-OH), and Marc Veasy (D-TX), admitted that advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) are the key to “reducing and even eliminating traffic fatalities”.

“But Americans will not benefit from the future autonomous vehicles (AV) promise to bring if the United States continues its current trajectory of inaction. China is already filling the void to set global standards, establish supply chains, and deploy the technology on its own,” it read.

“The People’s Republic of China also...