Trump's supporters want respect

Surprise surprise, when you can't think of anything to rebut a post out comes the name of Hillary or Obama. Typical conservative BS.

If they were not the POS they are, I wouldn't. But they are, and they make Trump look amazing.

Trump has so far managed to open the Canadian dairy market to our farmers. And he has rescued the American auto industry as well.

No he didn't. He prolonged the inevitable. Renewable energy sources must be explored. Fossil fuels can no longer be relied upon to sustain human travel.

Instead of embracing mass transportation, carbon emission solutions and less reliance on oil rich countries, he has done nothing to combat a very real, growing issue on how to encourage the growth of the auto industry.

Trump negotiated a treaty where at least 75% of every car must be built within North America for it to avoid tariffs, and at least 40% of it must be built by workers making at least $16 an hour.

Now all we need to do is slap a 25% tariff on all other vehicles.

Gasoline verses some other fuel source is a separate issue from protecting the auto industry from foreign depredations.

Now that Trump has saved the American auto industry, they will be able to make vehicles that are increasingly efficient and/or use alternate fuels.

False:

Autos from Canada will still be exported to the U.S. without tariff under the new trade agreement that replaces NAFTAAUTOTRADER

The U.S. and Canada came to agreement Sunday night on revisions to The North American Free Trade Agreement that could protect the U.S. auto industry from job-killing tariffs for building vehicles in Mexico and Canada.

The changes overall are incremental, and involves changes to autos, agriculture, intellectual property and other aspects of trade among the three countries. Markets reacted positively, sending the DJIA up 0.75% in mid-day trading.

New York Times op-ed columnist and Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman said by tweet: "My original prediction on Trump/NAFTA was that we would end up making some minor changes to the agreement, Trump would declare victory, and we'd move on. That's what seems to have happened."

The new agreement must be ratified by Congress in 2019. And with the House of Representatives widely expected to shift from Republican to Democrat, the final details of the agreement announced today could be amended.

Though the deal does not address steel and aluminum, currently subject to tariffs, the key part of the proposed deal is a mostly status-quo policy for automakers and auto-parts companies who manufacture in Canada and Mexico, though it will incentivize companies to source more parts from plants that pay their workers more. And it gets rid of tariffs that Trump was going to level on both countries. The U.S. still has to cut a deal with the European Union over trade policy that will impact German auto manufacturers exporting vehicles to the U.S., though they also build most of the vehicles they sell in the U.S. in the U.S., Mexico and Canada.

Proposed tariffs on vehicles made in Canada and Mexico would have added as much as $2,220 to the average cost of a vehicle, according to the Michigan-based Center for Automotive Research. Toyota, for example, has said a 25% tariff proposed by Trump's White House would drive up the cost of a U.S.-made Camry sedan by $1,800. That is ironic since an annual survey of auto manufacturing by Cars.com routinely places the Camry at or near the top of the list of "most American" vehicles based on U.S. derived content.

The trade pact proposal exempts up to 2.6 million vehicles imported from each Canada and Mexico from tariffs, protecting current production, according to drafts on the White House website. Auto parts shipments would also be exempted up to a certain limit for both countries, but raise the level of parts required in vehicles sold in the U.S. that are made in plants where they pay at least $16.00 per hour. That is meant to either shift jobs out of Mexico where wages are lower, or pay Mexican worker more.

One provision of the new agreement requires cars imported from another “NAFTA” country to contain 75% North American content, up from 62.5% currently. This means that some parts business now coming from China and other developing countries where wages are lower will need to be shifted to North America, but not necessarily the U.S. That measure could result in Japanese and German companies building cars in North America to shift more parts production to North America. Automakers are still absorbing the new deal and are expected to make their positions known soon.

The U.S. had already come to terms with Mexico on a new trade deal, with Canada being the hold out. Trump has been hurling insults at Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for months for resisting changes in NAFTA. Trudeau has dug in as Trump has threatened tariffs on Canadian exports.

"It's a good day for Canada," Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told reporters after updating his cabinet on the deal, which spurred a jump in global financial markets.

In a joint statement, Canada and the United States said it would "result in freer markets, fairer trade and robust economic growth in our region.”

Trump’s trade advisor Peter Navarro, who is a big proponent of tariffs to reduce trade deficits, said “This is a big win for Main Street and Wall Street and every street in between.”

The deal, though, did not deal with steel and aluminum tariffs impacting Canada and Mexico, and pushing up prices of end products built in the U.S., such as cars and trucks, recreational vehicles and trailers and many more products. Those tariffs will kick into consumer prices in a big way in 2019 if not addressed.

Auto industry groups endorsed the deal, but said there is more work to do to stabilize commerce. "Uncertainty is the enemy of business, large and small," said Cody Lusk, President and CEO of the national auto dealer lobby AIADA. "Today's announcement of a trilateral agreement between the U.S., Canada, and Mexico allows the entirety of the auto industry, from manufacturers to hometown dealers, to once again plan for the future...but we remain deeply concerned over the Department of Commerce's ongoing 232 investigation, and the threat of massive new tariffs on imported autos and parts [outside the three countries]. Dealers will continue to urge the Trump Administration and Congress to pursue positive trade policies that keep the American auto industry open, dynamic, and competitive."

Ford executives said the new deal should stabilize the uncertainty that has gripped the industry the last few months. "We stand ready to be a collaborative partner to ensure this agreement is ratified in all three markets because it will support an integrated, globally competitive automotive business in North America," said Joe Hinrichs, executive vice president and president of Ford's global operations. "The benefits of scale and global reach will help to drive volume and support manufacturing jobs."

Trump on Monday morning called it a “great deal,” tweeting that it “solves the many deficiencies and mistakes in NAFTA, greatly opens markets to our Farmers and Manufacturers, reduces Trade Barriers to the U.S. and will bring all three Great Nations together in competition with the rest of the world.” In the Rose Garden, Trump said, "We will be building many more cars in the U.S." That remains to be seen as automakers are more apt to make some changes in their supply chains that could result in more jobs in Mexico and Canada.

In truth the changes amount to tweaks. Canada is by far the No. 1 destination for U.S. exports, and the U.S. market accounts for 75-percent of what Canada sells abroad. Holding together an agreement was too important for both countries’ economies.

That doesn't work either:

Trump's latest trade deal will hurt car buyers

As U.S. negotiators close in on a new trade deal with Mexico and Canada, they appear committed to new rules on car production that will require costlier components, which in turn would raise prices. Further provisions would allow for new tariffs on some imported cars that could boost sticker prices by thousands of dollars.

The new rules would require more American-made content in cars imported from Canada and Mexico, in exchange for allowing those products to enter the U.S. duty-free. Another measure would raise the portion of a car that must be built by workers earning relatively high wages. Cars coming from Mexico and Canada that don’t meet those requirements will be subject to a 2.5% tariff, while cars imported from other countries could face tariffs as high as 25%.

The protectionist measures are meant to safeguard U.S. manufacturing jobs. But they come at a cost to consumers. “At the least, the new rules will raise the price of autos for U.S. consumers,” writes Chad Bown of the Petersen Institute for International Economics. “The North American auto sector could suffer an even worse blow if the Trump administration imposes new tariffs or quantitative limits on autos and parts not covered by the new deal.”

Of the 17.3 million cars sold in the United States last year, about 8.6 million were produced in the U.S. That leaves 8.7 million imports. Of the imports, Canada and Mexico each account for about 1.9 million. Popular models made in Mexico include the Ford Fusion, GMC Terrain, Jeep Compass, Honda HR-V and Volkswagen Jetta. Canada produces the Chrysler Pacifica, Ford Edge, Chevy Equinox, Cadillac XTS and Lexus RX450h, among others.

The new version of the Toyota RAV4, made in Canada, could cost more on account of President Trump.

The new rules would raise the required amount of North American content in a tariff-free car from 62.5% to 75%. Another rule would require at least 70% of the steel, glass and aluminum in a car to come from North American sources. And a wage provision would raise the automaker’s portion of assembly-line workers earning at least $16 per hour from 30% now to 40% for cars, and 45% for SUVs.

It’s not yet clear how much the new rules would add to the cost of imported cars, because we don’t know how automakers would react to the changes. If complying with the new rules would add more than 2.5% to the cost, then it would make sense to simply pay the 2.5% tariff rather than spending more than that to eliminate the tariff. If manufacturers passed all of that onto consumers in the form of higher prices, the starting sticker price of a Toyota RAV4, for example, would jump from $24,660 to $25,277.

Price hikes could be considerably steeper on some models. In addition to the new trade deal with Canada and Mexico, Trump is considering tariffs of 25% on all other imported cars. That amounts to roughly 3.8 million vehicles including many Audi, BMW and Mercedes models built in Europe, Toyota Priuses built in Japan, Hyundais built in Korea, Buicks built in China, and others. With a 25% tariff, the starting price of an Audi A4 would soar from $36,975 to $46,219.

Trump’s 25% tariff on select imports would cause major disruption in the industry. The Center for Automotive Research estimates that a 25% tariff on auto imports, excluding Canada and Mexico, would raise the cost of all imported vehicles by an average of $3,980 and the price of all vehicles, including those built in the United States, by $2,450. The reason all prices would rise is that forcing up the price of some imports allows competitors to raise prices as well, even if they don’t have to pay the tariff.

The Audi A4, made in Germany, could end up subject to a new 25% tariff.

Higher prices normally dent sales, and the Center for Automotive Research predicts that a 25% tariff on non-North American imports would reduce sales of all new cars by about 1.2 million units per year. That would kill 197,000 American jobs, which is obviously the opposite of what Trump says he is trying to accomplish.

Protectionist tariffs don’t necessarily protect jobs because government bureaucrats imposing new rules can’t predict how companies will react. “Some companies may rework their supply chains to meet the new rules,” says Bown. “But perversely, a second possibility is that Trump’s new regulations will be so costly that companies decide to source even less content from North America. To keep car prices at levels consumers are willing to pay, some automakers may buy parts from Asia or Europe, where they are cheaper.”

Automakers also have to keep the cost of U.S. production under control if they want to export those vehicles to other countries, where they have to compete with other exports not subject to Trump-style government-imposed price hikes. Carmakers build about 2.4 million vehicles in the United States for export each year, and those vehicles need to be price-competitive in foreign markets. BMW, for instance, exports SUVs from its factory in South Carolina to China, and if the cost of producing in the U.S. gets too high, they could relocate that production elsewhere.

The new trade provisions with Canada and Mexico still aren’t final. Once the three countries fully agree, Congress has to approve any changes, and that isn’t likely until late this year, at the earliest. If Democrats gain control of the House of Representatives in the November midterm elections, as seems possible, Congress may never approve of the controversial Trump trade maneuver. For consumers, the breakdown lane may not be a bad place to be.

Competition among those automakers who comply with the rules to avoid a 25% tariff will help to keep prices down.

If they react to a 25% tariff by not complying with it, then they will have to pay the tariff. Let's see how long they choose to keep doing that.

I think such automakers will soon decide to either comply with the tariffs or withdraw from the US market completely and leave only sellers who do comply.

I expect that the unions will take notice if the Democrats become the enemy of working people.

You don't know the auto industry very well...

Auto industry cries foul as Trump moves toward car tariffs
BY PAUL WISEMAN, CHRISTOPHER RUGABER AND TOM KRISHER, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Posted Jul 18, 2018 1:12 pm PST Last Updated Jul 18, 2018 at 2:21 pm PST


WASHINGTON – Having started a trade war with China and enraged U.S. allies with steel tariffs, President Donald Trump is primed for his next fight. He is targeting a product at the heart of the American experience: cars.

Trump’s latest plan is to consider slapping tariffs on imported autos and auto parts — a move he says would aid American workers but that could inflate car prices, make U.S. manufacturers less competitive and draw retaliation from other nations.

The action has also begun to provoke a backlash among member of Congress, who have so far been reluctant to challenge Trump policies that are upending decades of U.S. policies.

On Thursday, manufacturers, suppliers, car dealers and foreign diplomats will line up to testify at a Washington hearing to try to head off auto tariffs. After the hearing, the Commerce Department will decide whether to label imported vehicles and auto parts a threat to America’s national security and whether to recommend tariffs to the president.

In announcing the auto investigation in May, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross had said, “There is evidence that, for decades, imports from abroad have eroded our domestic auto industry.”

Yet even General Motors, which ostensibly would benefit from a tax on its foreign competition, is opposed to Trump’s plan.

And even considering the administration’s trade war with China over Beijing’s predatory practices in high-tech industries and even after imposing tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from America’s closest allies, Trump’s auto tariffs raise the ante substantially: The U.S. last year imported $192 billion in vehicles and $143 billion in auto parts — figures that dwarf the $29 billion in steel and $23 billion in aluminum imports and the $34 billion in Chinese goods the administration has so far hit with tariffs.

“This is really taking it up one gigantic notch,” said Mary Lovely, a Syracuse University economist who studies trade. “I do think it may be a bridge too far.”

In the Senate, Democrat Doug Jones of Alabama and Republican Lamar Alexander of Tennessee have announced plans to introduce legislation opposing Trump’s proposed 25 per cent auto tariffs. Both warned that the tariffs threaten tens of thousands of jobs in their states.

“Foreign automobiles and auto parts are not a threat to our national security,” Jones said. “But you know what is a threat? A 25 per cent tax on the price of these imported goods.”

Nor is America’s auto industry itself crying for help against foreign competition. U.S auto sales reached 17.2 million last year — the fourth-best haul on record. Since the end of the Great Recession in 2009, U.S. automakers and parts suppliers have added 343,000 jobs.

Despite Trump’s threat, the auto trade war might not happen anytime soon, if at all. The president might be angling to use the tariffs to pressure the European Union to lower its own auto tariffs or prod Mexico to agree to a rewrite of the North American Free Trade Agreement more favourable to the United States.

“I’m hoping it’s just bluster,” said Paul Ritchie, owner of Honda and Kia dealerships in Maryland and Pennsylvania. “I understand where the administration is coming from. Our trade imbalances should be corrected. I’m not sure you can take 25-30 years of neglect on trade imbalances and try to fix it in six months.”

Even if the auto tariffs aren’t just a negotiating ploy, it could take time before they kick in: It took 10 months for the steel and aluminum tariffs — also justified on national security grounds — to go from proposal to reality.

In targeting steel, aluminum and perhaps autos, the administration has weaponized an obscure provision of trade policy: The Trade Expansion Act of 1962 empowers a president to impose unlimited tariffs on particular imports if the Commerce Department finds that those imports threaten national security.

The administration has defined national security broadly, suggesting that anything that hurts U.S. economic competitiveness damages national security — “an argument you can apply to any industry you want,” noted Philip Levy, senior fellow at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and a former White House trade adviser.

Automakers, in the meantime, have warned that tariffs would raise their costs — and their customers’. In comments filed with the government, GM warned that that “increased import tariffs could lead to a smaller GM, a reduced presence at home and abroad for this iconic American company, and risk less —not more — U.S. jobs.”

Even companies that build cars in America rely on imported parts that would be subject to the tariffs, thereby raising automakers’ costs.

“There is no automaker that has 100 per cent exclusively U.S.-sourced parts,” said Brian Krinock, Toyota’s senior vice-president for North American factories. “It is a global business with global operations.”

Toyota manufactures nine models in the United States, all of which use some imported parts. About 30 per cent of the Camry’s parts are imported, Krinock said, and a 25 per cent tariff on those parts would raise the cost of a Camry by $1,800.

The Toyota Sienna, made in Princeton, Indiana, would be nearly $3,000 more expensive, he said, and the Tundra pickup truck, made in San Antonio, Texas, would cost $2,800 more.

Car collectors, too, have written to Commerce to express their opposition to the tariffs.

“I have been a lifelong car enthusiast, and old cars pose no threat to national security. Neither do their parts,” wrote Mark Gillett of Dallas, urging Commerce to exempt cars and parts “of a certain age.”

Adam Posen, president of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, estimated that the tariffs would raise auto prices overall by 9 per cent to as high as 21 per cent for luxury models. They would cut the industry’s output 1.5 per cent and cost 195,000 jobs, a Peterson analysis found.

Then there’s the threat of retaliation from U.S. trading partners. Toyota exports eight U.S.-made models to 31 countries; those exports could be hit by retaliatory tariffs, Krinock said.

Nearly 98 per cent of the cars and trucks that would be hit by the tariffs are imported from U.S. allies: The European Union, Canada, Japan, Mexico and South Korea. If all those countries retaliated by slapping their 25 per cent duties on U.S. car exports, it would deepen the impact on the U.S. economy and cost up to 1.2 million jobs in the United States, Posen estimated.

The Commerce Department originally set two days of hearings about the proposed auto tariffs, but then cut that to one day. Posen said that cutting back on the time for industry representatives to testify suggests the administration already expects to impose the tariffs.

“This is something where they predetermined the outcome,” he said.

If domestic auto makers currently rely on too many foreign parts that are subject to 25% tariffs, they will just have to start relying more on domestically-produced parts. Or pay the tariffs.

Some rescue.



https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-46350057

And then there's this...

The General Motors Lordstown plant in Ohio makes the Chevrolet Cruze compact. It has been hurt by plunging demand for small and midsize cars. CreditCreditAlan Freed/Reuters
By Neal E. Boudette
Nov. 26, 2018

General Motors announced Monday that it planned to idle five factories in North America and cut roughly 14,000 jobs in a bid to trim costs. It was a jarring reflection of the auto industry’s adjustment to changing consumer tastes and sluggish sales.

The move, which follows job reductions by Ford Motor Company, further pares the work force in a sector that President Trump had promised to bolster. Referring to G.M.’s chief executive, Mary T. Barra, he told reporters, “I spoke to her and I stressed the fact that I am not happy with what she did.”

Mr. Trump also invoked the rescue of G.M. after its bankruptcy filing almost a decade ago. “You know, the United States saved General Motors,” he told reporters, “and for her to take that company out of Ohio is not good. I think she’s going to put something back in soon.”

In addition to an assembly plant in Lordstown, Ohio, the cuts affect factories in Michigan, Maryland and the Canadian province of Ontario.

Part of the retrenchment is a response to a slowdown in new-car sales that has prompted automakers to slim their operations and shed jobs. And earlier bets on smaller cars have had to be unwound as consumers have gravitated toward pickup trucks and sport-utility vehicles in response to low gasoline prices.

In addition, automakers have paid a price for the trade battle that Mr. Trump set in motion. In June G.M. slashed its profit outlook for the year because tariffs were driving up production costs, raising prices even on domestic steel. Rising interest rates are also generating headwinds.

Ms. Barra said no single factor had prompted G.M.’s cutbacks, portraying them as a prudent trimming of sails. “We are taking these actions now while the company and the economy are strong to stay in front of a fast-changing market,” she said on a conference call with analysts.

Workers leaving the General Motors factory in Lordstown, Ohio, on Monday. “For her to take that company out of Ohio is not good,” President Trump said of G.M.’s chief executive, Mary T. Barra.

The idling of the five plants next year will result in the layoff of 3,300 production workers in the United States and about 2,500 in Canada. The company also aims to trim its salaried staff by 8,000. The cuts represent more than 10 percent of G.M.’s North American work force of 124,000.

Investors welcomed the news, sending G.M.’s shares up 4.8 percent to their highest closing price in about three months.

Word of the cutbacks in Canada had surfaced over the weekend. Just before G.M.’s announcement, workers walked out of the plant in Oshawa, Ontario, into a driving rain. Waving red flags and clad in ponchos bearing the logo of their union, Unifor, they began blockading truck entrances.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he had expressed his “deep disappointment” about the closing to Ms. Barra.

The United Auto Workers, representing workers at the American plants, said G.M.’s move “will not go unchallenged.” Closing domestic plants while expanding production in China and Mexico is “profoundly damaging to our American work force,” said the union vice president in charge of negotiations with G.M., Terry Dittes.

The plants include three car factories: one in Lordstown that makes the Chevrolet Cruze compact; the Detroit-Hamtramck plant, where the Chevrolet Volt, Buick LaCrosse and Cadillac CT6 are produced; and a plant in Oshawa, Ontario, which primarily makes the Chevrolet Impala. In addition, the company will halt operations at transmission plants in the Baltimore area and in Warren, Mich.

G.M., Ford and Fiat Chrysler are all poised to negotiate new labor contracts next year. Some of the affected G.M. plants could resume production, depending on the outcome of the bargaining. Carmakers often agree to keep plants open in exchange for other concessions from the union.

General Motors employees hugging while staging a blockade and protest at one of the entrances to the company’s plant in Oshawa, Ontario. G.M. said the plant would halt production next year.

Earlier this year, Ford said it would stop making sedans for the North American market and announced cuts in its work force. Fiat Chrysler stopped making small and midsize cars in 2016.

Closing auto plants outright — rather than idling them, as G.M. says it plans — has been rare since the industry emerged from the recession. The last permanent shutdown of a plant in the United States came in 2016 when Mitsubishi Motors shuttered one in Normal. Ill. Before that, Ford closed a truck plant in St. Paul in 2011.

More typically since rebounding from the recession, carmakers and their suppliers have restarted shuttered plants, adding new ones across the South and hiring tens of thousands of workers a year.

But demand for small and midsize cars has plunged. Two-thirds of all new vehicles sold last year were trucks and S.U.V.s. That shift has hit G.M.’s Lordstown plant hard. Just a few years ago, the factory employed three shifts of workers to churn out Chevy Cruzes. Now it is down to one. In 2017 the plant made about 180,000 cars, down from 248,000 in 2013.

More broadly, the yearslong boom in car and truck sales in North America appears to be ending, said John Hoffecker, vice chairman at AlixPartners, a global consulting firm with a large automotive practice. “Sales have held up well this year, but we do see a downturn coming,” he said. AlixPartners forecast that domestic auto sales will fall to about 15 million cars and light trucks in 2020, from about 17 million this year.

Even though they are facing a potential slump, carmakers continue to spend heavily to develop electric vehicles and self-driving technology, both to meet regulatory mandates and to anticipate the future of driving. That shift is expected to remake the global industry and enable companies to enter new and potentially lucrative businesses, such as driverless taxi and delivery services.

At the same time, automakers have had to contend with a new political agenda in Washington. One benefit has been the corporate tax cuts enacted last year. The changes, championed by Mr. Trump and his party, saved G.M. $157 million in federal taxes in the first nine months of the year, according to the company’s most recent quarterly earnings report.

The Trump administration has moved to scrap stringent emissions requirements put into place under President Barack Obama, but the industry hopes that Mr. Trump will relent and reach an agreement with California, which sets its own emissions requirements. Automakers are wary of having two sets of standards.

Before the election and after, Mr. Trump prodded Ford, G.M. and others to build plants in the United States instead of Mexico or China. As events have played out, however, his determination to rework the North American Free Trade Agreement is expected to have a modest impact on automakers, preserving much of the original 1994 accord.

The terms negotiated with Canada and Mexico stipulate that at least 75 percent of an automobile’s value must be produced in North America for a company to import it into the United States duty-free, and that 40 to 45 percent of a vehicle’s value must consist of parts made by workers earning at least $16 an hour, a provision aimed at shrinking Mexico’s wage advantage. Analysts believe the changes will have little to no effect on American jobs.

Over all, the American auto industry has added nearly 350,000 jobs since the industry bottomed out in the wake of the recession. But the industry still employs tens of thousands fewer people than before the crisis, and hundreds of thousands fewer than in 2000.

About 970,000 people worked in the United States auto industry in October, an increase of 12,800 since Mr. Trump took office. Most of that growth, however, came among manufacturers of recreational vehicles and trailers, as well as in auto parts. Through October, automakers like G.M. had cut about 7,000 jobs under Mr. Trump, government figures show. (Those numbers don’t include the hundreds of thousands of workers employed by auto dealers, repair shops and related industries.)

Ms. Barra said G.M. would set aside up to $2 billion in cash to pay for the job reductions announced Monday, and take noncash charges against its pretax earnings of about $1.8 billion. The charges will affect earnings in the fourth quarter of 2018 and the first quarter of 2019.

Until last month, G.M. had been offering severance packages to entice salaried employees in North America to leave the company. In January, the company plans to cut additional white-collar jobs on an involuntary basis. Between the two actions, it aims to eliminate about 15 percent of its salaried jobs in North America.

General Motors also said on Monday that it would stop production at two unspecified plants outside North America by the end of next year.

No one reads all that crap when all it does is confirm the hate the media has for Trump. We know.

If this President knew what he was doing, the only crap we would read is your uninformed opinion.

He knows exactly what he is doing. And my opinion is hardly uninformed. It is plain to see a meltdown because he has not failed, he is succeeding. He will only be around for six more years, relax.

not for long eh

You are willfully ignorant to not see how the auto industry must change to meet the demands of the future. Gasoline powered engines are not sustainable any more. Hybrids are already here, and all electric cars are becoming mainstream. To deny any effort to explore renewable energy beyond coal or oil makes this President's knowledge extremely lacking in cultivating innovative products.

He is denying nothing. Companies and universities are free to explore energy alternatives. No one is stopping them. Trump is giving Americans jobs and that is a number one priority.

You really need to stay informed of issues that really mean something.

This Clean Energy Research Has Been a Bipartisan Priority for Decades. Donald Trump Wants to Cut It by 72%

TRUMP REJECTS ADMINISTRATION'S DIRE WARNING ABOUT ECONOMIC IMPACT OF CLIMATE CHANGE
×
By JUSTIN WORLAND February 1, 2018

The Trump Administration has moved to dramatically cut funding for a Department of Energy program supporting research and development of clean energy technologies, the president’s latest attempt to stall renewable energy sources like wind and solar to benefit fossil fuels.

The 72% cut would be imposed on the Energy Department’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, according to a Washington Post report. The office, which received $2 billion in funding the current fiscal year, supports research in a variety of clean energy technologies from electric vehicles to to solar power.

Trump’s move bucks decades of bipartisan efforts to advance clean energy. Investments in clean energy technology help fight climate change, but they also support a burgeoning domestic industry at a time when the world increasingly demands clean energy. Democrats and Republicans alike have also argued that alternative energy programs help ensure U.S. energy security: relying less on oil and gas in the power sector ensures a steady domestic supply and supports the goal of exporting energy.

For those reasons, the cuts are unlikely to be approved by Congress. Top Republicans have balked at the Trump’s past efforts to cut funding for renewable programs. “The president has suggested a budget,” Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee said last year in response to similar proposals. “But, under the Constitution, Congress passes appropriations bills.”

But protests from fellow Republicans are unlikely to stop Trump’s broader energy agenda. The Administration has launched a multi-pronged effort to stem the growth of renewable energy sources while propping up the ailing coal industry. Trump has proposed new rules to support coal-fired power plants that are not financially viable, cut climate change programs and imposed a steep tariff on imported solar panels.

Energy analysts say that those moves are unlikely to help coal companies, a Trump constituency, though they may still hurt the growing renewable energy sector. The Energy Information Administration, the federal agency responsible for energy data, shows coal production falling in the next two years. Meanwhile, solar power companies have already experienced a slowdown as a result of the tariffs.

What matters is the Lefts and Democrats ignoring the rule of law. Illegal immigration matters. Individual rights matter. Free speech matters. You idiots are not going to save the world. Try saving your country.