Assistance from Claude AI. For a fact-check of major claims, click here.
Summary
President Donald Trump announced on December 3, 2025, the formal termination of Biden-era Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards, calling them “ridiculously burdensome” regulations that drove up vehicle prices by 25 percent and forced automakers to build cars Americans didn’t want. The announcement, made alongside Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and executives from Ford, Stellantis, and General Motors, marks a significant deregulatory shift in automotive policy, with Trump claiming the move will save consumers at least $1,000 per vehicle while protecting American auto jobs. The event also highlighted provisions in the recently passed “Big, Beautiful Bill” that allow consumers to deduct interest on car loans from their income taxes, potentially reducing effective vehicle costs by half for middle-income buyers. Trump simultaneously authorized production of smaller, more affordable vehicles previously banned in the United States, similar to popular compact cars sold in Asian markets. The announcement comes as automakers have committed $70 billion in new U.S. investments, with Ford pledging $5 billion, Stellantis $13 billion, and General Motors $4 billion, though Trump attributed these investments primarily to his tariff policies rather than the CAFE rollback itself.
Participants
Administration Officials:
- Donald Trump – President of the United States
- Sean Duffy – Secretary of Transportation
- Steven Bradbury – Deputy Secretary of Transportation
- Kevin Hassett – Economic Advisor
Auto Industry Executives:
- Jim Farley – Chief Executive Officer, Ford Motor Company
- Antonio Filosa – Chief Executive Officer, Stellantis
- Doug Hanly – Representative, General Motors Orion Assembly Plant, Michigan
- Tom Castriota – Chairman, National Automobile Dealers Association
United States Senators:
- Shelley Moore Capito – West Virginia
- Ted Cruz – Texas
- Kevin Cramer – North Dakota
- Marsha Blackburn – Tennessee
- Eric Schmitt – Missouri
- Bernie Moreno – Ohio
United States Representatives:
- Sam Graves – Missouri
- Vern Buchanan – Florida
- Mike Kelly – Pennsylvania
- Roger Williams – Texas
- Lisa McClain – Michigan (mentioned but did not speak)
- Troy Balderson – Ohio
Press:
- Multiple reporters (several unidentified)
- Brian (reporter, full name not provided)
Detailed Topic-by-Topic Breakdown
CAFE Standards Rollback: The Core Announcement
President Trump opened the event by declaring his administration had “taken historic action to lower costs for American consumers, protect American auto jobs and make buying a car much more affordable.” He characterized the Biden administration’s CAFE standards as “ridiculously burdensome, horrible, actually” regulations that “imposed expensive restrictions and all sorts of problems” on automakers.
The President explained that these policies “put tremendous upward pressure on car prices,” combining with what he called “the insane electric vehicle mandate” to cause car prices to “soar more than 25 percent,” with some increasing “18 percent in one year.” Trump framed the rollback as “one more step to kill the Green New Scam,” which he described as “the greatest scam in American history” apart from “Russia, Russia, Russia.”
Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy provided the technical explanation for why the administration considered the Biden CAFE standards unworkable. He explained that the previous administration’s regulations required analyzing fuel economy using electric vehicles and hybrids rather than just combustion engines as the law specified, resulting in “a 62-mile-an-hour per gallon standard, which I think the car companies will tell you is completely unattainable.”
According to Duffy, this forced automakers to spend heavily on technology to meet impossible standards, and when they couldn’t comply, they had to “trade for carbon costing billions of dollars and, again, driving up the price of the cars.” He argued this approach made cars “less affordable” rather than more affordable, contradicting Democratic claims about consumer protection.
Duffy further explained that more affordable cars would mean “more Americans can afford to buy a new car, which means they’re going to be safer on the roads because of all the great new technology we have that save lives.” He promised the new rules would “allow the automakers to make vehicles that Americans want to purchase, not vehicles that Joe Biden and Boot-edge-edge wants them to build.”
Auto Industry Response and Investment Commitments
Jim Farley, CEO of Ford Motor Company, praised the announcement as “a victory for common sense and affordability.” He emphasized that Ford remains “the number one auto producer in our country” with “80 percent of the vehicles we sell here we make in our country—and we never left, unlike many of our competitors.” Farley noted that Ford was “number one exporter” with “the most factory auto factory workers.”
Farley explained that the CAFE standard “aligned with customer demand” represented “the right move” because it would allow Ford to “invest more in affordable vehicles” made in the United States. He emphasized consumer choice, noting Ford was “number two last year in EV sales, we were number three in hybrid, and we’re the leading brand for combustion.”
Antonio Filosa, CEO of Stellantis, called it “a great day” because “we see CAFE regulation reconcile with real customer demand.” He announced that Stellantis would “invest through Jeep, Ram, Dodge and Chrysler, $13 billion in the next four years, increasing production by 50 percent, delivering to the market five new vehicles and creating 5,000 additional jobs.”
Doug Hanly, representing the General Motors Orion Assembly plant in Michigan, explained that the facility “is currently going through a retool so that we can build additional US manufactured pickup trucks and full-size sport utilities for our customers.”
Tom Castriota, chairman of the National Automobile Dealers Association, spoke on behalf of 18,000 dealers nationwide. He emphasized that the administration’s actions would “definitely going to save our customers money” and fulfilled the promise to “let the consumer buy what they want.”
President Trump provided specific investment figures throughout the event: Ford announced “$5 billion across its Kentucky and Michigan plants” creating “at least 4,000 new jobs”; Stellantis pledged “$13 billion to expand its US-based manufacturing by more than 50 percent”; and General Motors planned “$4 billion as it brings its manufacturing back to the United States from Mexico.” Trump claimed that “after falling by 5 percent under Biden, US auto production has surged by 10 percent so far this year.”
The Electric Vehicle Critique
President Trump repeatedly attacked what he characterized as the Biden administration’s “electric vehicle mandate,” saying “we had to have an electric car within a very short period of time, even though there was no way of charging them and lots of other things.” He claimed “it would have cost $5 trillion to build the charging plants” and cited an example where “in certain parts of the Midwest, they spent—to build nine chargers they spent $8 billion.”
Trump argued that the regulations forced manufacturers into an absurd business model. He explained that Ford “would make numerous electric cars in order to sell one Ford-150, because they’d make all their money with the 150, and they were willing to lose money on building two or three electric cars that they couldn’t sell in order to make some money on the 150.”
Kevin Hassett, the economic advisor, provided a macroeconomic analysis of why the EV mandate would have been disruptive. He noted that “the car that has the best gas mileage that you can buy that has only gasoline is a Honda, that gets about 36 miles per gallon. Joe Biden wanted to make every car on average be above 50.” This meant “there’s no car made in the US that you would be able to sell two years from now, three years from now under that rule.”
Hassett explained the energy implications: “if everybody had an electric car then nobody would be buying gasoline anymore and they’d have to take all the miles that they travel and put it on the grid. And so we would have to increase the production of electricity in the US by 25 percent over the next couple of years if they had their way.”
Representative Vern Buchanan from Florida shared anecdotal evidence from dealers: “They got into the e-vehicles, electric cars, and I’m talking to dealers and coming in and coming and talk to me. And basically, they couldn’t sell one, they couldn’t give one away… The guy says the car’s been sitting there a year, I can’t get rid of it.”
Senator Bernie Moreno from Ohio criticized the previous administration’s EV subsidies, noting that “the person who sat behind this desk before you gave $7,500 in subsidies to multimillionaires who are leasing electric Rolls-Royces, electric Porsches, electric Lamborghinis.”
Tax Deductions for Car Loans: The “Big, Beautiful Bill” Provision
A recurring theme throughout the event was the tax deduction for car loan interest included in what participants called the “Big, Beautiful Bill.” President Trump explained this provision multiple times, clearly viewing it as potentially more significant than the CAFE standards rollback itself.
Trump stated: “We’re allowing people to deduct. So if you go out and buy a car. And this is for the middle income but for lower income, no matter what, they never really had deductions. You know, rich people like deductions, but middle-income people were never really afforded deductions, which is very unfair.”
He elaborated that “you borrow money to buy a car, you’re allowed to deduct the interest from your income tax. And I think that’s going to be one of the most—in terms of your industry, I think it’s going to be the biggest thing that we’re talking about maybe even bigger than CAFE standards. People are going to be able to borrow money, deduct it. So it’s going to cost them essentially half.”
Tom Castriota from the National Automobile Dealers Association confirmed that this tax deduction for car loans “had gone away some years back” and now “makes it affordable for our buyers that can—that can save money through that loan of the tax, anywhere from several hundred to several thousand.”
Representative Vern Buchanan provided detailed calculations for small business owners, explaining that through “full expensing,” a business owner buying a $60,000 vehicle in a 20 percent tax bracket could “take 20 percent of the 60 grand, get a $12,000 write off, they can pay their payments for the first year.” He called this “a powerful tool” that allows buyers to effectively have “no payment for a year.”
Senator Troy Balderson, a former Chrysler-Dodge dealer himself, praised Senator Bernie Moreno for leading “the charge on that in the Senate” to get the provision “into One Big, Beautiful Bill,” calling it “a big deal.”
President Trump returned to this theme repeatedly, saying “I was proud of that because I thought of it and it seemed so simple. Other people are allowed big interest. If you’re a rich person, you’re allowed to have big interest deductions for different things you do. But if you’re a middle-income person, has to buy a car, you were never entitled to anything, and now you’re getting a full interest deduction on the loan.”
Small Cars and K-Cars: New Vehicle Approval
President Trump made an unexpected announcement about authorizing production of smaller vehicles. He explained that in countries like Japan, South Korea, and Malaysia, “they have a very small car, sort of like the beetle used to be with the Volkswagen. They’re very small, they’re really cute and I said how would that do in this country? And everyone seems to think good but you’re not allowed to build them.”
Trump stated he had “authorized the Secretary to immediately approve the production of those cars,” describing some of them as “really beautiful, actually.” He noted that “Honda, some of the Japanese companies do a beautiful job, but we’re not allowed to make them in this country.”
Secretary Duffy confirmed that Trump “gave me the directive to clear the regulations on this, to which we have. And so if—if Toyota or any other company wants to make smaller, more affordable cars, fuel efficient, we have cleared the deck so they can make them in America and sell them in America.”
President Trump told the auto executives: “They’re really nice and less expensive. And it really gives people a chance to have a car, you know, have a brand-new car as opposed to a car that maybe isn’t so great. And so new car companies start thinking about that. I think it’s—I think it’s going to be a tremendous market.”
Antonio Filosa from Stellantis expressed enthusiasm for what he called “this great news of the K-cars which we are very interested in too,” indicating his company was “really looking forward to work with Secretary Duffey, your team—in the future for the next steps.”
Tariffs and Manufacturing Revival
President Trump repeatedly connected the auto industry investments to his tariff policies rather than solely to the CAFE rollback. He stated: “Because of tariffs, they’re coming in, not only the automobile industry—AI, we’re leading China in AI. We’re leading everybody in AI. We’re leading everybody in everything. We have the hottest country right now.”
Trump claimed that “one year ago, we had a dead country and now we have the hottest country anywhere in the world. And it started from November 5th, but it also started when we did the tariffs.” He asserted that tariffs are “bringing in trillions of dollars of wealth” and “bringing in national security.”
The President made a striking claim about peace negotiations: “And I’ve stopped eight wars. And of the eight wars, five of them have been because of tariffs and trade.”
President Trump explained his philosophy on manufacturing: “If somebody was sitting behind this desk that knew what they were doing, that wouldn’t have happened. They would have said, well, you can sell your car here, but we’re going to put 100 percent tariff and you would have never had the auto industry leave.”
He stated that the U.S. “lost more than 50 percent of our auto industry” but “now it’s all coming back.” Trump claimed: “We lost 52 percent over the years, 52 percent of our automobile manufacturers. You see it—closed factories all over the place. Now they’re all opening up. They’re being—in most cases they’re being knocked down, and new ones are being built in their place.”
Trump emphasized to Doug Hanly that “this is largely coming in because of the tariff situation. We have—we’re taking in trillions of dollars, actually, trillions… these great companies are coming back to the United States. They left the United States.”
Throughout the event, Trump provided sweeping investment figures: “In 10 months, we have $18 trillion being invested. We never had $1 trillion being invested. And Biden had much less than that. Think of it—he had less than $1 trillion over four years. We have $18 trillion in 10 months.”
Senator Bernie Moreno offered data supporting some manufacturing gains: “because of your policies at the beginning of the year, 51 percent of the cars made—that were sold in America were made in America, 51 percent before you got sworn in. Last month, that number was 57 percent. We moved it six points, which nobody thought would be possible in four years. We did it in 10 months.”
Congressional Support and Political Context
Multiple members of Congress spoke about their roles in passing the legislation and their support for the policy changes.
Representative Mike Kelly from Pennsylvania, who Trump noted “has been with me from day one,” emphasized consumer choice: “The American people have always been able to choose what they want to buy. They don’t want to be taken out of a market by people who quite frankly don’t even drive their own car and saying this is the way you’ve got to go going into the future.”
Kelly explained the dealer perspective: “at the end of the day, if you were there with me, I’d say, Mr. President, other than price, what’s keeping you from taking the car home today? It’s always price. And the fact that we can build a car that’s affordable that people want to buy, that’s the key to it.”
Representative Roger Williams from Texas, also a car dealer, said: “this is huge for the dealer body, the local car dealer. We’re going to be able to sell what the customer wants. The manufacturer is going to make what the customer wants.” He noted that “99 percent of the businesses in America are small businesses. Many are car dealers, employ a lot of people.”
Senator Shelley Moore Capito from West Virginia connected the announcement to a previous Congressional Review Act she participated in regarding electric vehicles, calling it “the beginning of really making common sense because it was going to impact 17 other states and really a large part of our economy.”
Capito offered a philosophical perspective on automobiles: “When we talk about car and auto, we sort of talk about just, oh, we need a car. Do you know what a car does for a family? You can take your children to school, you can go to the store, you can visit your mother, you can go to church, you can have a job. You have the flexibility that you need. A car for an American family is about a roadway to prosperity.”
Senator Marsha Blackburn from Tennessee highlighted her state’s auto manufacturing presence: “In Tennessee we make great automobiles, and we have a fantastic workforce. And whether you’re GM or Ford with their new investment in Tennessee, or Nissan or VW or Toyota with the engine plant, what you see is the components that are necessary to build these cars.”
Senator Ted Cruz from Texas explained that on the Senate Commerce Committee, lawmakers “worked together to zero out the CAFE standards. We wrote that into the law that the CAFE standards went to zero.” He argued this made cars safer because the previous regulations “forced cars to be more expensive and made of plastic instead of steel, because you had to make them lighter to comply with these standards. So you’d get in a wreck and people would die.”
Cruz announced that “the Senate Commerce Committee on January 14th, we’re going to have a hearing with all of the big three there and Tesla. And the entire hearing is going to focus on how your leadership has reduced the burdens on carmakers that’s lowering costs, that’s giving consumers more choices and it’s producing more jobs in America.”
Senator Kevin Cramer from North Dakota emphasized the cumulative effect of deregulation: “I think what Kevin talks about in terms of the cascading economic opportunity from this one single event is just the tip of the iceberg. When you think of all the rules and regulations that you have repealed, I think it’s more important frankly than the tax cuts.”
Senator Sam Graves from Missouri provided the rural perspective: “these Cafe standards were absolutely unworkable in rural Missouri. We need vehicles that are practical and affordable and can haul for our small businesses, for agriculture. And it just simply didn’t work.”
California Regulations and the “Two Standards” Problem
President Trump addressed the challenge automakers faced with California’s separate emission standards, which he had previously revoked. He explained: “we revoked Biden’s emissions waiver for California so that California communists could not regulate the automobile industry and ruin the entire nation of automobiles, and they were doing that too.”
Later in the event, Trump elaborated: “they were going by California, we had like two different countries, California and 15 that followed California because you had 15 states follow California and the rules from California were just like everything else. That’s why people are leaving. That’s why it’s—it’s such a mess.”
The President explained the manufacturing challenge: “the car companies didn’t know what to do because they had two standards and you can’t build two different cars for the same country.”
Affordability Rhetoric and Inflation Critique
President Trump spent considerable time attacking what he called the Democratic “affordability” messaging. He argued: “this whole thing is, they use the word affordability. It’s a Democrat hoax. They’re the ones that drove the prices up. And all they do is say, affordability and you’re supposed to say, oh, that means they had low prices. No, we inherited the worst inflation in the history of our country.”
Trump claimed: “Biden had, because of his stupid ways and his—between his energy policies and his spending policies, we had the worst inflation in the history of our country and now our prices are coming down and they’re coming down for cars.”
He cited Chris Wright, “the head of energy in our country,” as announcing that “there are now parts of our country, its parts, it’s all happening, $1.99 for gasoline a gallon. And we have it at $2.50, $2.60. It was at $5. And that’s bigger than any tax cut we could give, you know, for the average family.”
President Trump attacked the Inflation Reduction Act: “It’s like the Inflation Reduction Act and after they got it approved, because everybody said inflation reduction, they admitted it had nothing to do with reducing inflation. It’s a con job.”
He returned to his critique of Democratic messaging: “I think affordability is the greatest con job. They look at you and they say, affordability. They don’t say anything else. Everyone says, oh, their prices were so low. No, they had the worst inflation.”
Trump claimed success on food prices: “Eggs, when I took over eggs were four times higher than they ever were. We got the prices down to the lowest level… beef is coming down. Beef was up there a little bit. Our ranchers did well, but we got to make them do a little bit less well perhaps, but the beef is now coming down. Coffee is now coming down.”
Questions on Ukraine Peace Negotiations
Reporters asked about Ukraine peace negotiations, specifically about meetings between Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
President Trump confirmed: “I can tell you that they had a reasonably good meeting with President Putin. We’re going to find out. It’s a war that should have never been started. It’s a war if I were president—we had a rigged election. If I were president that war would have never happened.”
Trump stated: “I thought they had a very good meeting yesterday with President Putin” and expressed optimism: “I think we have something pretty well worked out with them. They’re very satisfied considering.”
The President emphasized the human cost: “last month, 27,000 soldiers, 27,000—that’s like you take a stadium, a football stadium, not an arena and you cut it in half. 27,000 people died, young—mostly young soldiers died last month in one month and that’s the only reason I’m involved.”
Trump clarified that the U.S. isn’t providing free military aid: “we’re not spending any money in the war, we’re selling to NATO. We’re not being ripped off like we were under Biden. Biden was handing everybody everything we had, giving us—giving them all the missiles, everything they wanted free, no charge… They’re paying top dollar, full price for everything, goes to NATO and then NATO distributes it, NATO pays us.”
When asked if Putin wanted peace, Trump responded: “He would like to end the war. That’s what they—that was their impression… their impression was that he would like to see the war ended. I think he’d like to get back to a more normal life. I think he’d like to be trading with the United States of America, frankly, instead of losing thousands of soldiers a week.”
Drug Interdiction and Boat Strikes
Reporters questioned President Trump about controversial boat strikes against drug traffickers. Trump defended the actions: “I think you’re going to find that this is war, that these people were killing our people by the millions actually, if you look over a few years. I think last year we lost close to 300,000 people were killed.”
The President claimed success: “the drugs coming in through sea are down 91 percent. I’m surprised it was 9 percent you want to know. I don’t know who’s doing the 9 percent, but it’s down 91.”
Trump expanded the policy: “And we’re going to start very soon on land and I’m sure you’re thrilled to hear that… very soon we’re going to start doing it on land too, because we know every route, we know every house, we know where they manufacture this crap, we know where they put it all together.”
When pressed on whether survivors were killed while clinging to boats, Trump responded: “I support the decision to knock out the boats. And whoever is piloting those boats, most of them are gone. But whoever are piloting those boats, they’re guilty of trying to kill people in our country.”
Venezuela Relations
Asked about Venezuela and President Maduro, Trump responded cryptically: “I spoke to him briefly, just told him a couple of things. We’ll see what happens with that.”
The President attacked Venezuela’s migration policies: “Venezuela sends us drugs, but Venezuela sends us people that they shouldn’t be sending. They sent us—they emptied their prisons into our country. They sent us killers, murderers. They sent us drug dealers at the highest level. They sent us gang members. They sent us people from their mental institutions.”
Jack Smith and the Autopen Controversy
President Trump attacked special counsel Jack Smith when asked about a House Judiciary Committee subpoena, calling him “a thug. He’s a failed prosecutor. He’s a bad man. He’s a bad—he’s an evil man… He’s a sick man. There’s something wrong with him actually.”
Trump raised allegations about President Biden’s use of an autopen: “One of the things is the autopen. Everything he signed, almost, with the exception of the pardon of his wonderful son, Hunter, just about everything he signed was not signed by him. He had no knowledge of it. He didn’t know what it was.”
The President claimed: “those people are guilty, in my opinion, of a major crime. Everything that was signed by that autopen he—the man operating the Autopen… They would just go in and sign his name with an autopen onto very important documents. Not only pardons but policy, maybe Cafe standards, OK, as an example.”
Somali Immigration Critique
In response to a question about Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey’s pride in having “the largest Somali community in the country,” President Trump responded bluntly: “Well then he’s a fool.”
Trump expanded his criticism: “I wouldn’t be proud to have the largest Somalian—look at their nation. Look how bad their nation is. It’s not even a nation, it’s just a people walking around killing each other. Look, these Somalians have taken billions of dollars out of our country.”
The President specifically attacked Representative Ilhan Omar: “They have a Representative, Ilhan Omar, who they say married her brother. It’s a fraud. She tries to deny it now, but you can’t really deny it because, you know, just happened. She shouldn’t be allowed to be a Congresswoman. And I’m sure people are looking at that and she should be thrown the hell out of our country.”
Trump blamed the Obama administration: “A lot of it starts with Barack Hussein Obama, because that’s when people started coming in. And you have to have people come in that are going to love our country, cherish our country.”
Henry Cuellar Pardon
When asked about his pardon of Congressman Henry Cuellar, a Democrat, Trump explained: “He’s a respected person. He was treated very badly because he said that people should not be allowed to pour into our country, and he was right. He didn’t like open borders… as soon as he made that statement, I then said I’ll bet he gets indicted, and that’s what happened.”
The President noted that Cuellar’s wife was also indicted: “his wife got indicted, Imelda. And that’s sort of a first. Usually, they leave the wives alone, right?”
Tariff Supreme Court Case
President Trump expressed concern about a Supreme Court challenge to his tariff authority: “I hope the Supreme Court—I pray that the Supreme Court understands the importance of the sensible—really, I mean this would be country threatening if something happened with regard to that.”
Trump attacked those bringing the case: “the people that brought that case are bad people. They’re very bad people. They hate our country. They represent foreign countries, including China, but they represent—and China is paying us a lot of money now in tariffs.”
He emphasized the stakes: “We’re taking in trillions of dollars. We’re stopping wars. We have great national security because of tariffs. And then to think that we have to even go and justify this… maybe we would have had the political people. We wouldn’t have these people without tariffs. The people that are up here from Stellantis and Ford and General Motors, great companies, including this gentleman right—they wouldn’t be here today if we didn’t have tariffs.”
Miscellaneous Topics
Nvidia and Export Controls: When asked about conversations with Jensen Huang of Nvidia regarding chip exports to China, Trump responded briefly: “He knows, he knows very well. He’s a—he’s done an amazing job. Nvidia, very good.”
Gaza Peace Plan: On phase two of the Gaza peace plan, Trump said: “it’s going along well” despite a bomb incident that day. He claimed “We have peace in the Middle East; people don’t realize it. We have tremendous support. 59 countries there’s tremendous support… phase two is moving along, yeah, it’s going to happen pretty soon.”
Consumer Confidence: Asked about record Black Friday sales being up 9.1 percent, Trump responded: “I just think that we do, we have tremendous confidence in the country.” He highlighted military recruitment as an indicator: “we had the worst recruitment in the history of our country. A year later, we have the greatest recruitment in the history—You can’t even get in.”
Mileage Blockers: A reporter asked about illegal devices that alter odometer readings on leased vehicles. Tom Castriota from the National Automobile Dealers Association explained: “They’re getting built in China and most of them are coming out of Great Britain, sir. They’re being distributed through China through distributors selling them online through Great Britain.”
MLA Citation:
Trump, Donald J. “Remarks: Donald Trump Announces a Reduction in Automobile Mileage Standards.” Factba.se, Roll Call, 3 Dec. 2025, www.factba.se.