<p>Clinching is a cold-forming joining technology that requires no rivets or pre-drilled holes. Owing to its advantages of high joining efficiency, excellent joint performance, absence of heat-affected zones, and the ability to join dissimilar materials, it has been widely applied in engineering fields. However, under fatigue service conditions, clinched joints are prone to fretting wear, which significantly degrades the structural mechanical properties and shortens service life. To address this issue, this paper analyzes the fretting wear mechanism of clinched joints, and proposes two optimization processes—laser pretreatment and foam metal interlayer—based on the essential conditions for the occurrence of fretting wear, so as to mitigate the adverse effects of fretting wear on the performance of clinched joints. The research results show that the fretting wear regions are concentrated in the overlap area between upper and lower sheets and the circumferential region of the joint neck. The wear marks exhibit non-uniform distribution, accompanied by the generation of black granular aluminum oxide wear debris. Both optimization processes can effectively reduce the degree of fretting wear. Specifically, the laser pretreatment process can increase the static strength of the joint by 44.01%, while the copper foam interlayer structure reduces the static strength by 9.17%. The static failure fractures of clinched joints exhibit ductile fracture characteristics, whereas the fatigue failure fractures are dominated by quasi-cleavage fracture characteristics.</p>