Trump Says He Welcomes Chinese Investment in US Auto Industry

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, in a long acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention July 18, said Chinese companies are building large automobile factories in Mexico, and that "the United Auto Workers ought to be ashamed for allowing this to happen." He also said their leader "should be fired immediately, and every single autoworker, union and nonunion, should be voting for Donald Trump because we’re going to bring back car manufacturing, and we’re going to bring it back fast."

The former president said if China opens car factories in Mexico, the U.S. will "put a tariff of approximately 100[%] to 200% on each car, and they will be unsellable in the United States." But, he said, if Chinese automakers open factories in the U.S., "we don't mind it happening."

President Joe Biden has already said he will impose 100% tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, but if EVs made by Chinese-owned companies such as Volvo and Polestar were built in Mexico with enough North American or Mexican content, they would avoid tariffs or pay 2.5% tariffs.

Trump also riffed on tariffs and trade, as he did during his term as president. "We have long been taken advantage of by other countries. And think of it, oftentimes these other countries are considered so-called allies. They’ve taken advantage of us for years," he said.

"We lose jobs. We lose revenue, and they gain everything and wipe out our businesses, wipe out our people. I stopped it for four years, I stopped it. And we’re really ready to make changes like nobody had seen before." He called NAFTA "the worst trade deal ever made" and called USMCA "the best trade deal ever made. Actually, probably the best trade deal was the deal I made with China where they buy $50 billion of our product."

China didn't buy $50 billion worth of U.S. exports, as it promised to do in the phase one deal that stopped the escalation of Section 301 tariffs and retaliatory tariffs.

"We will not let countries come in, take our jobs, and plunder our nation. They come and do that. They plunder our nation," Trump said, saying that foreign firms will have to build in America if they want to sell their product in America.

"Build it in America and only in America. And this very simple formula -- and Congress has to go along with us and they will -- this very simple formula will create massive numbers of jobs. We will take over the auto industry again and many, many, hundreds of thousands of jobs -- we lost so many jobs over the years. If you go back 20, 25 years, they’ve stolen, going to China and Mexico, about 68% of our auto industry. Manufacturing jobs. We’re going to get them all back. We’re going to get them all back, every single one of them."