Donald Trump accused President Joe Biden Tuesday of betraying autoworkers with his electric vehicle manufacturing mandate.
The Biden administration is pushing the U.S. auto industry to shift as much as two-thirds of the new vehicle market to EVs by 2032, which the UAW has warned could put thousands of jobs at risk, but the administration says it intends to invest $2 billion from last year's Inflation Reduction Act to speed the transition and resuscitate struggling plants.
"Joe Biden’s draconian and indefensible Electric Vehicle mandate will annihilate the U.S. auto industry and cost countless thousands of autoworkers their jobs," Trump posted on Truth Social. "The only thing Biden could say today that would help the striking autoworkers is to announce the immediate termination of his ridiculous mandate. Anything else is just a feeble and insulting attempt to distract American labor from this vicious Biden betrayal."
Biden will stand alongside picketing autoworkers Tuesday in Michigan in perhaps the first example of a president joining an ongoing strike, while Trump will hold his own event Wednesday in Detroit, although union leaders have said he's no ally.
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"Crooked Joe should be ashamed to show his face before these hardworking Americans he is stabbing in the back," Trump posted. "With Biden, it doesn’t matter what hourly wages they get, in three years there will be no autoworker jobs as they will all come out of China and other countries. With me, there will be jobs and wages like you’ve never seen before. Our economy will grow!"
