Former President Donald Trump slammed President Joe Biden’s electric vehicle mandate proposal as “preposterous” and said it would benefit China and destroy the American auto industry, according to prepared remarks circulated by his campaign ahead of his speech in Rapid City, South Dakota.
In the speech, Trump pledges to “terminate every Green New Deal restriction that is destroying the U.S. economy with skyrocketing energy costs—starting with Biden’s preposterous Electric Vehicle mandate.”
Biden’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has proposed regulations that would require as much as two-thirds of the new U.S. car market to be electric vehicles by 2032.
Twenty Republican attorneys general signed a letter in July slamming the agenda aimed at new light-duty electric vehicles, writing it jeopardizes “consumer safety, economic stability, and national security.”
Trump notes in his speech that United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain “cannot even think about allowing all-electric cars – they will all be made in China, and the Auto Industry in America will cease to exist!”
“There is already a giant ‘E Glut,” they don’t go far or long, are very expensive, and the consumer must be given a choice. Vote for Trump, and I will stop this madness immediately,” he adds.
Trump made pleas to “save” auto-producing states like Michigan, as he did in a Truth Social post on Monday, where he courted the United Auto Workers, as Breitbart News’s Hannah Bleau noted.
“CHINA WILL TAKE IT ALL, 100%. United Auto Workers, VOTE FOR TRUMP,” he wrote.
“Get your leaders to ENDORSE ME, I WILL KEEP ALL OF THESE GREAT JOBS, AND BRING IN MANY MORE. CHOICE IN SCHOOLS, AND CHOICE IN CARS!!!” he added.
Before Trump took the stage Friday, he landed the endorsement of Gov. Kristi Noem (R-SD), who rose to GOP stardom with her never-lockdown approach to the coronavirus pandemic.
“It is my honor to present to you the man in the arena,” Noem said of Trump in an ode to President Teddy Roosevelt’s “Citizenship in a Republic” speech. “He is a man of significance. He is the leader, the fighter that our country needs. He has my full and complete endorsement for president of the United States of America.”
