Chinese automaker decides selling Trumpchi car in US is bad idea

Looking to expand into the United States, a Chinese carmaker is ditching the name of one of its signature brands in order to avoid being associated with the US president.

Guangzhou Automobile Group Co., Ltd (GAC) has said that its popular line of Trumpchi vehicles will be renamed to something that’s not so “politically charged,” the Wall Street Journal reported this week. GAC began selling Trumpchis on the Chinese market in 2010 and claims that the vehicle’s name has no connection with Donald Trump.

Instead, the name is a sort of spin-off on the car’s Chinese name, “Chuánqí” (传祺), which roughly translates to “spreading good fortune” and is a play on the Chinese word for “legendary,” also pronounced “ Chuánqí” (传奇).

GAC has long held plans of becoming the first Chinese automaker to break into the American market by the end of 2019, and have reportedly been deliberating over how its Trumpchi brand might hurt this effort.

“At first I’d never thought of it, why change the name? It’s the president Americans selected, it’s similar to the president’s name, this has to be good right?” GAC Group President Feng Xingya told Reuters at last year’s Shanghai auto show.

“But in the United States the level of opposition [to Trump] is high.”

This week, the company told reporters that it had finally made the decision to move on from the Trumpchi name in order to “avoid the wrong connotation or misunderstanding.” A new name for the car brand has not yet been decided.

Meanwhile, we patiently await Shenzhen-based Trump Toilets’ expansion into the US.

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