Incoming U.S. President Donald Trump’s transition team is recommending sweeping changes to cut off support for electric vehicles and charging stations and to strengthen measures blocking cars, components and battery materials from China, according to a document seen by Reuters.
The recommendations, which have not been previously reported, come as the U.S. electric-vehicle transition stalls and China’s heavily subsidized EV industry continues to surge, in part because of its superior battery supply chain. On the campaign trail, Trump vowed to ease regulations on fossil-fuel cars and roll back what he called President Joe Biden’s EV mandate.
The transition team also recommends imposing tariffs on all battery materials globally, a bid to boost U.S. production, and then negotiating individual exemptions with allies, the document shows.
Taken together, the recommendations are a stark departure from Biden administration policy, which sought to balance encouraging a domestic battery supply chain, separate from China, with a rapid EV transition. The transition-team plan would redirect money now flowing to building charging stations and making EVs affordable into national-defense priorities, including securing China-free supplies of batteries and the critical minerals to build them.
The proposals came from a Trump transition team charged with crafting a strategy for swift implementation of new automotive policies. The team also calls for eliminating the Biden administration’s $7,500 tax credit for consumer EV purchases, a plan that
Reuters first reported last month. The policies could strike a blow to U.S. EV sales and production at a time when many legacy automakers, including General Motors (GM.N), opens new tab and Hyundai (005380.KS), opens new tab, have recently introduced a wider array of electric offerings to the U.S. market.
Jason Miller, a Trump transition senior adviser, said on Tuesday that the recommendations come from “outsiders who have no role in charting administration policy.”
Cutting government EV support could also hurt sales of Elon Musk’s Tesla (TSLA.O), opens new tab, the dominant U.S. EV seller. But Musk, who spent more than a quarter-billion dollars helping to elect Trump, has said that losing subsidies would hurt rivals more than Tesla.
