FREELAND, Mich. (WWJ) — As the November election nears, former President Donald Trump is taking aim at the Biden Administration’s push towards electric vehicles.
Stumping in Saginaw County on Wednesday, Trump told his supporters that Biden’s EV “mandate” would be an “economic bloodbath,” and vowed to “bring the car industry back to Michigan.”
The reference to Biden’s “mandate” on electric vehicles alludes to the EPA’s decision earlier this spring to require automakers to have at least 70% of their fleets be EVs or hybrids by 2032 in an attempt to scale back on greenhouse gas emissions.
“I’ll terminate Joe Biden's radical plan to kill Michigan's economy by repealing his insane electric vehicle mandate,” Trump said at Wednesday’s rally. “Is that the craziest thing?”
There’s a problem with the EV market, Trump said: “they’re very expensive and they don’t go far.”
“Not going far is not good. Also, they’re not gonna be made in Michigan; they’re gonna be made in China. Every single one, gonna be made in China,” Trump said. "But I'm gonna turn it around. We're bringing the car industry back to Michigan.”
Trump said he would put tariffs on foreign-made cars and get "keep Chinese cars the hell out of America."
"We don't want Chinese cars," Trump said.
"If you want an electric car, I think it's great. I'm all for it. But if you want a gasoline combustion -- if you want to have a hybrid -- whatever the hell you want, you should be able to get," Trump said.
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has also been a proponent of the shift to electric vehicles in recent years. Last winter she signed an executive directive that will transition the state’s vehicles to all electric by 2040.
The Detroit Three automakers in recent months have begun to scale back EV production. In January Ford cut production of its F-150 Lightning due to slowing demand. Ford also announced this week it lost $1.3 billion on EVs in the first quarter of 2024.
Trump’s visit to Michigan on Wednesday comes the same day the NAACP Detroit Branch announced President Biden would be the keynote speaker at this month’s Fight For Freedom Fund Dinner at Huntington Place.
Trump’s visit also comes in the midst of his so-called “hush money trial” in Manhattan, which was on a break Wednesday. The former president called the judge presiding over that trial “crooked,” a day after he was held in contempt of court and threatened with jail time for violating a gag order.
He was fined $9,000 for making public statements about people connected to the criminal case, according to the Associated Press.