By U.S. Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) | March 5, 2024 | Fox News
Last year, President Biden announced sweeping new mandates on the American auto industry to force a transition to electric vehicles. Under these radical, Green New Deal rules, as many as two-thirds of all cars and trucks sold in the U.S. market by 2032 would have to be EVs.
These rules were so terrible for consumers – and met with such fierce resistance by American workers – that his administration is already second-guessing them.
Biden has the wrong target. And his commitment to climate radicalism threatens to decimate an industry that has been the foundation of the American middle class for a century.
Rather than strangle our auto sector with regulations, he should focus instead on protecting them from Chinese automakers – the very ones that are dumping vehicles on the global market, and setting their sights on the United States.
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China has emerged as a dominant automaker in recent years, surpassing Japan as the world’s largest auto exporter in 2023. China’s dominance is not by accident. The Chinese Communist Party has deployed hundreds of billions of industrial subsidies, stolen intellectual property, and imposed forced technology transfers to get ahead.
It’s worked: China now holds a commanding share of the global market for autos, especially EVs and their component parts.
That’s why Biden has it entirely backwards. His EV mandates threaten to undermine U.S. automakers and make the industry even more dependent on components from China. That’s an outcome American workers cannot afford.
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That’s why I am introducing tough, new legislation to stop the avalanche of Chinese EVs. My bill would impose a new 100% tariff on all vehicles from China, increasing the total tariff on these cars to 125%.
It would also close this “Mexico loophole” by establishing a new rule of origin to block Chinese automakers from circumventing tariffs by building their cars in third countries. This will go a long way to stopping the flood of EVs in the U.S. market before it starts.
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The solution is simple. If he really wants to protect American workers, Joe Biden must immediately hike tariffs on Chinese autos – rather than doubling down on Green New Deal mandates.
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