Donald Trump’s invitation to Chinese carmakers might boost US transition to EVs
- The Republican presidential nominee may still disdain electric vehicles but encourages their manufacturers to build plants in the United States
At a March rally in Ohio, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump broke with party rhetoric on Chinese investment and welcomed carmakers from the country to build factories in the US.
“If they want to build a plant in Michigan, in Ohio, in South Carolina, they can – using American workers, they can,” the former president said in Dayton. It’s an invitation he has since repeated, including at the Republican National Convention last month.
The remarks also reflect Trump’s retreat from his long-time dire rhetoric about electric vehicles, which Chinese carmakers overwhelmingly focus on for international markets.
While the former president has previously only taken hits at EVs – saying that they will “kill” the US auto industry and that he would rescind federal support for them – he now strikes a more flexible tone. They’re “incredible” but “not for everybody”, he said, after meeting Tesla’s chief executive Elon Musk.
For Trump, the overture to Chinese companies is an alternative to cheap Chinese autos flooding US markets, a concern that both he and other Republicans like Senator Marco Rubio of Florida have repeatedly raised amid reports of Chinese electric vehicle and battery manufacturers considering building plants in Mexico.
