Former President Donald Trump on Tuesday made a series of promises to broadly dismantle federal regulations, boost domestic fossil fuel production and lure “energy-hungry industries” to the United States if he’s reelected.
Energy and manufacturing were central themes in a Trump economic speech delivered Tuesday in Savannah, Georgia, a key swing state.
The former president is vowing to slash the corporate tax rate as he cuts federal regulations in a bid to bolster domestic manufacturing. His remarks Tuesday come as President Joe Biden is in New York trumpeting the Biden-Harris administration’s energy and climate change record, including the behemoth climate law known as the Inflation Reduction Act.
“As your president, here is the deal that I will be offering to every major company and manufacturer on Earth,” Trump said. “I will give you the lowest taxes, the lowest energy costs, the lowest regulatory burden and free access to the best and biggest market on the planet, but only if you make your product here,” he said.
“If you don’t make your product here, then you will have to pay a tariff — a very substantial tariff,” he said.
Trump also vowed to quickly build new power plants, “attract energy-hungry industries,” appoint a “manufacturing ambassador” and set up new “special zones” on federal land with low taxes and regulations.
“We will build new power plants,” he said. “China is already building plants, electric plants, and we have a problem because we have things called environmental impact statements and various things that you have to go through. I will get them approved so fast.”
Trump said he would appoint “a manufacturing ambassador whose sole task — and it’ll be a great one — will be to go around the world and convince major manufacturers to pack up and move back to America where they want to be.”
And if he’s president, Trump said he would “set up special zones of federal land with ultra-low taxes and regulations for American producers.”
He also promised to “seriously expedite environmental approvals” and “get everything approved quickly” to unleash domestic production of minerals and rare earth elements.
“They think we have to go to China for rare earth,” he said. “We don’t. We have more rare earth than they do, but it’s protected environmentally. We can’t do anything about it. We’re going to do something about it. We’re going to use our resources to our benefit, and it’ll be clean and environmentally perfect.”
The former president also praised Tesla CEO Elon Musk, whom Trump has enlisted to help cut federal regulations if he wins in November.
“His product is phenomenal, and there’s a great place for electric cars, but you have to have gasoline-powered cars, too. You have to have hybrids,” Trump said.
“They say the new thing is hydrogen cars,” Trump said, “but they have a problem. If it explodes, you end up about seven blocks away, and you’re dead. So personally, I don’t know about you, but I’m going to take a pass.”
Hydrogen cars are widely considered as safe as other cars, Car and Driver reported. No injuries or deaths attributable to the hydrogen components have been recorded, the magazine wrote in April.
