Former President Donald Trump is vowing to save the United States auto industry from President Joe Biden’s Electric Vehicle (EV) mandate in his speech at the Republican National Convention (RNC).
During his RNC speech on Thursday evening, Trump vowed to “end the Electric Vehicle mandate on day one — thereby saving the U.S. auto industry from complete obliteration, which is happening right now, and saving U.S. customers thousands and thousands of dollars per car.”
Trump mentioned that China is looking to build manufacturing plants in Mexico to produce EVs that they want to then sell in the U.S. market without any tariffs. United Auto Workers (UAW) President Shawn Fain, who endorsed Biden in the election, should be fired as a result, Trump said:
The United Auto Workers ought to be ashamed for allowing this to happen and the leader of the United Auto Workers should be fired immediately and every single auto worker, union and non-union, should be voting for Donald Trump because we will bring back car manufacturing and we’re going to bring it back fast. [Emphasis added]
Trump said he would threaten tariffs on auto manufacturers who close up American plants only to outsource auto jobs overseas while selling their cars in the U.S. market.
“[China is] building some of the largest plants in the world … we’re going to bring it back. We don’t mind that happening, those plants are going to be in the United States and our people are going to be manning those plants,” Trump said. “And if they don’t agree with us, we’re going to put a tariff of approximately 100-200 percent on each car and they will be unsellable in the United States.”
“We have long been taken advantage of by other countries, often being considered our allies,” Trump continued. “We lose jobs and revenue, they gain everything, and wipe out our businesses, wipe out our people. I stopped it four years ago, and I will stop it again … we will not let countries come in, take our jobs, and plunder our nation.”
In March, Biden issued an executive order to begin phasing out gas-powered cars and require that a majority of new cars sold in the U.S. market be EVs or hybrids by 2032.
The EV mandate threatens to eliminate millions of American auto jobs, as EVs require far less manpower to produce compared to gas-powered cars. Likewise, materials needed to make EV batteries are primarily sourced from China.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at
