Trump’s Auto-Job Victories Fade as Pandemic Erodes Gains
- Virus erased employment gains even as number of plants grew
- Impact on U.S. manufacturing from rework of Nafta unclear
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Shortly after President Donald Trump was elected in 2016, he made a proposition to the CEOs of the three largest U.S.-based automakers at a White House meeting: I’ll cut taxes and regulations, and you increase jobs and investment.
He made good on the tax and regulatory cuts, handing corporate America hundreds of billions of dollars in tax breaks and repealing Obama-era fuel-economy rules, though that rollback has fractured the industry. For all of the policy moves he made, there’s little evidence so far that the trajectory of the industry and its job growth changed markedly -- even before the pandemic.
On the campaign trail, Trump tells voters he “saved” the auto industry by ripping up old trade deals and renegotiating new ones.