Guest column: Trump puts U.S. leadership of auto industry at risk

Our automotive industry is one of the cornerstones of manufacturing in the United States. Vehicle manufacturers and their extensive ecosystem of suppliers represent 3.5 percent of our gross domestic product and over 7 million American jobs, more than any other U.S. manufacturing sector.  

The Trump administration’s chaos theory of economic development is a clear and present danger to this industry through its one-two gut punch of enormously disruptive tariffs, followed by the recent damn-the-science fuel efficiency standards freeze. U.S. global leadership of this foundational industry is now at stake.

As with the aerospace industry, the automotive sector is increasingly characterized by the need for substantial research and development investments and long product planning cycles, making consistent and predictable policies far into the future an imperative. 

When the cost of even modest midcycle product updates is measured in the billions of dollars, and the R&D costs of new technologies must be spread over multiple platforms and millions of units, the American auto industry cannot thrive and innovate without clear visibility into, and confidence in, regulatory, trade and energy policies years into the future. This is ever more true as yesterday’s V8’s and chrome are transformed into an arms race of electronics and electrification.

The reckless imposition of tariffs and wobbly, inconsistent bilateral negotiations by an administration willfully ignorant of global supply chain realities was the first shot at the auto industry. When more BMWs are produced in South Carolina than any other factory in the world, and manufacturers increasingly reserve their U.S. production capacity for higher-margin vehicles, policies designed around yesterday’s trade assumptions are like driving through your rear-view mirror. 

An even more consequential long-term hit to the industry came with the proposed abrupt suspension of the measured ramp-up of fuel efficiency standards. As with the tariffs, this move takes away the consistency and long-term predictability that is the essential foundation for the U.S. auto industry successfully competing worldwide.

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The manufacturers that worked hard and invested in new technologies to meet the long-term fuel efficiency standards are suddenly at a disadvantage, while others who dragged their feet are rewarded in the short term. An industry that had to be financially rescued by the federal government during the Great Recession and, after much pain, has roared back to life is being handed a short-term gift that, ironically, poses an existential threat in the long term. 

If our national goals for the auto industry have long been to strengthen its economic competitiveness while simultaneously reducing environmental impact, these policies achieve neither. We just chose oil over autos.

As bad as the short-term impacts of tariffs may be on the auto industry and the American consumer, the proposed mid-course about-face on fuel efficiency standards will be far more damaging in the long term. It is not too late to return to the achievable multiyear fuel efficiency gains that save American consumers at the pump, are our single largest contribution toward fighting climate change and serve as a roadmap for a more competitive U.S. auto industry. 

The choice before the administration — and the nation — is clear: Are we working together to preserve a foundation of our economy and a better future for our children, or opting for a short-term off-ramp to nowhere? 

John D. Porcari served as deputy secretary of transportation for former President Barack Obama and twice served as secretary of the Maryland Department of Transportation. Emil Frankel was assistant secretary for transportation policy under former President George W. Bush and is former commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Transportation. The views expressed are their own.