WASHINGTON (Reuters) - General Motors (GM) and Ford Motor (F) would need to stop exporting vehicles from China to the United States under a proposed rule cracking down on Chinese software and hardware, a Commerce Department official told Reuters Monday.

GM sells the Buick Envision and Ford sells the Lincoln Nautilus — both assembled in China — for the U.S. market. The automakers did not immediately comment.

"We anticipate at this point that any vehicle that is manufactured in China and sold in the U.S. would fall within the prohibitions," said Liz Cannon, who heads the Commerce Department's information and communications technology office. GM and Ford are aware, she added, that "going forward" that production in China for the United States market "would need to be shut down in China and moved elsewhere."

(Reporting by David Shepardson)