World

Trump’s Executive Order to End E.V. Subsidies Draws Pushback

Published

12 months ago

January 21, 2025

Trump’s Executive Order to End E.V. Subsidies Draws Pushback

If President Trump has his way, the auto industry’s transition to electric vehicles will soon slam into reverse. He will erase tax credits for electric-vehicle purchases, federal grants for chargers, and subsidies and loans to help retool assembly lines and build battery factories.

Executive orders issued by Mr. Trump on Inauguration Day amount to a sweeping repudiation of a centerpiece of former President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s multibillion-dollar program to address climate change, which Republicans cast as a campaign to ban gasoline cars.

The orders also present a challenge to automakers that have invested billions of dollars in electric vehicles, in part because the Biden administration encouraged them to. But some of the orders appear to bypass Congress or federal rule-making procedures, which could make them vulnerable to lawsuits and even resistance from within the Republican Party.

While framed as a way to revive the American auto industry, the orders could cause U.S. carmakers to fall behind if they scale back their electric-vehicle programs while Asian and European automakers continue perfecting the technology, analysts say. Already, 50 percent of car sales in China are electric or plug-in hybrids, and Chinese automakers like BYD are selling more cars around the world, taking customers away from established car companies, including American manufacturers.

An executive order entitled “Unleashing American Energy” and signed by the president on Monday instructs federal agencies to immediately pause disbursement of funds allocated by Congress that were part of the Biden effort to push the auto industry toward vehicles with no tailpipe emissions.

Among other things, the funds helped states to install fast chargers along major highways and provided tax credits of up to $7,500 for buyers of new electric vehicles and $4,000 to buyers of used models. The credits effectively made the cost of buying some electric cars roughly on par with prices for cars with gasoline or diesel engines.

Mr. Trump also rescinded an aspirational Biden executive order that called for 50 percent of new vehicles sold in 2030 to be fully electric, plug-in hybrids or vehicles that run on hydrogen fuel cells.

And Mr. Trump said the administration would seek to revoke California’s authority to establish air-quality standards that are stricter than federal rules. That would have a broad effect. California is aiming for 100 percent of new-car sales to be electric by 2035, and some of its standards are copied by at least 17 other states.

“The impact of this will be significant,” said Shay Natarajan, a partner at Mobility Impact Partners, a private equity firm that invests in sustainable transportation.

If demand for electric vehicles flags, as it has in other countries like Germany that cut incentives, she noted, carmakers could be left with costly, underused electric-vehicle and battery factories.

“Federal funding for E.V. and battery manufacturing will be harder to access, increasing the risk of stranded capital for manufacturing projects already underway,” Ms. Natarajan said in an email.

Representatives of the fossil-fuel industry celebrated the president’s action, while environmentalists lamented what they said was a serious setback to efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions and reduce urban air pollution caused by cars.

“This is a new day for American energy,” Mike Sommers, the president of the American Petroleum Institute, said in a statement, “and we applaud President Trump for moving swiftly to chart a new path where U.S. oil and natural gas are embraced, not restricted.”

Katherine García, a transportation expert at the Sierra Club, said: “Rolling back vehicle emission safeguards harms our health, our wallets and our climate. We will fight him at every turn of the road.”

But the end effect may not be as broad as the forceful language in Mr. Trump’s executive orders suggests.

Funds to encourage electric-vehicle sales and manufacturing were enshrined in legislation that the president cannot unilaterally repeal. Mr. Trump also cannot revoke rules that the Treasury Department and other government agencies established to determine how the money would be handed out merely with a stroke of the pen. Any attempt to short-circuit the laborious process of proposing new regulations that includes seeking comments from the public will almost surely invite credible legal challenges.

The Department of Energy has agreed to lend billions to carmakers like Rivian, which will receive $6 billion for a factory near Atlanta to produce electric sport utility vehicles. The loan agreements, some finalized in the waning days of the Biden administration, are binding contracts.

Much of the money has flowed to congressional districts in states like Georgia, Ohio, South Carolina and Tennessee where Republicans dominate local politics. Their representatives may hesitate to repeal laws that have brought their districts jobs and investment. That is a challenge for Republican leaders wrangling slim majorities in the House and Senate.

Ultimately, individuals and families will decide what cars they buy. Electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids are gaining market share not only because of subsidies, but also because they offer rapid acceleration and lower fuel costs. Cars that run on fossil fuels have been losing share, though that could change if financial incentives are removed from battery-powered cars and trucks.

The abrupt shift in political direction presents a quandary for automakers. Some may welcome promises by the president to rescind emissions and air-quality standards that force manufacturers to sell more electric cars than they might like. But elimination of federal subsidies could upset their financial planning when most are struggling to earn or increase profits.

The about-face on electric-vehicle policies adds to a climate of uncertainty and peril heightened by the president’s promise to impose 25 percent tariffs on goods from Canada and Mexico, which are major suppliers of cars and car parts to the United States.

The U.S. auto industry “will be shattered by tariffs on assembled vehicles or parts at this level,” Carl Weinberg, chief economist at High Frequency Economics, said in a note to clients Tuesday.

Some carmakers seemed to applaud the president’s actions, while others were noncommittal.

“President Trump’s clear focus on policies that support a robust and competitive manufacturing base in the United States is hugely positive,” Stellantis, which owns Dodge, Jeep, Ram, Chrysler and other brands, said in a statement.

Mary T. Barra, the chief executive of General Motors, congratulated Mr. Trump on Monday on X and said that the company “looks forward to working together on our shared goal of a strong U.S. automotive industry.”

There is no sign that Elon Musk — the chief executive of Tesla and head of what Mr. Trump is calling the Department of Government Efficiency — is using his influence to blunt the attack on electric vehicles. Tesla accounts for slightly less than half the electric cars sold in the United States, and almost all its vehicles qualify for $7,500 tax credits.

Four of the 16 cars and trucks that can be purchased with the help of that tax break are made by Tesla. G.M. is the only automaker that has more eligible models, at five. No other company has more than two qualifying vehicles.

Mr. Musk has previously said that the government should get rid of all subsidies and that Tesla would suffer less than other automakers. But analysts note that Tesla’s sales and profits would be hit hard if Mr. Trump successfully repealed or truncated the electric-vehicle tax credit, California’s clean-air waiver and other such policies.

Tesla did not respond to a request for comment.

During an appearance before Trump supporters in Washington on Monday, Mr. Musk, who is also the chief executive of SpaceX, exulted that the president had promised to send astronauts to Mars. “Can you imagine how awesome it will be to have astronauts plant the flag on another planet for the first time?” Mr. Musk said. He did not mention cars.

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World

Minnesota braces for what’s next amid immigration arrests and in the wake of Renee Good shooting

Published

9 hours ago

January 11, 2026

Press Room

Minnesota braces for what’s next amid immigration arrests and in the wake of Renee Good shooting

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Already shaken by the fatal shooting of a woman by an immigration officer, Minnesota’s Twin Cities on Sunday braced for what many expect will be a new normal over the next few weeks as the Department of Homeland Security carries out what it called its largest enforcement operation ever.

Protesters screamed at heavily-armed federal agents and honked car horns, banged on drums and blew whistles in attempts to disrupt their operations in one Minneapolis neighborhood filled with single-family homes.

There was some pushing and several people were hit with chemical spray just before agents banged down the door of one home on Sunday. They later took one man away in handcuffs.

“We’re seeing a lot of immigration enforcement across Minneapolis and across the state, federal agents just swarming around our neighborhoods,” said Jason Chavez, a Minneapolis city councilmember. “They’ve definitely been out here.”

Chavez, the son of Mexican immigrants who represents an area with a growing immigrant population, said he is closely monitoring information from chat groups about where residents are seeing agents operating.

People holding whistles positioned themselves in freezing temperatures on street corners in the neighborhood where 37-year-old Renee Good was shot and killed Wednesday, watching for any signs of federal agents.

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More than 20,000 people have taken part in a variety of trainings to become “observers” of enforcement activities in Minnesota since the 2024 election, said Luis Argueta, a spokesperson for Unidos MN, a local human rights organization .

“It’s a role that people choose to take on voluntarily, because they choose to look out for their neighbors,” Argueta said.

The protests have been largely peaceful, but the Twin Cities remained anxious. Minneapolis public schools on Monday will start offering remote learning for the next month in response to concerns that children might feel unsafe venturing out while tensions remain high.

Many schools closed last week after Good’s shooting and the upheaval that followed.

While the enforcement activity continues, two of the state’s leading Democrats said on Sunday that the investigation into Good’s shooting death shouldn’t be overseen solely by the federal government.

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and U.S. Sen. Tina Smith said in separate interviews Sunday that state authorities should be included in the investigation because the federal government has already made clear what it believes happened.

“How can we trust the federal government to do an objective, unbiased investigation, without prejudice, when at the beginning of that investigation they have already announced exactly what they saw — what they think happened,” Smith said on ABC’s “This Week.”

The Trump administration has defended the officer who shot Good in her car, saying he was protecting himself and fellow agents and that Good had “weaponized” her vehicle.

Todd Lyons, acting director of ICE, defended the officer on Fox News Channel’s “The Sunday Briefing.”

“That law enforcement officer had milliseconds, if not short time to make a decision to save his life and his other fellow agents,” he said.

Lyons also said the administration’s enforcement operations in Minnesota wouldn’t be needed “if local jurisdictions worked with us to turn over these criminally illegal aliens once they are already considered a public safety threat by the locals.”

The killing of Good by an ICE officer and the shooting of two people by federal agents in Portland, Oregon, led to dozens of protests across the country over the weekend.

Thousands of people marched Saturday in Minneapolis, where Homeland Security called its deployment of immigration officers in the Twin Cities its biggest ever immigration enforcement operation.

___

Associated Press journalists Giovanna Dell’Orto in Minneapolis, Thomas Strong in Washington, Bill Barrow in Atlanta, and John Seewer in Toledo, Ohio, contributed.

World

Netanyahu and Rubio discuss US military intervention in Iran amid ongoing nationwide protests: report

Published

10 hours ago

January 11, 2026

Press Room

Netanyahu and Rubio discuss US military intervention in Iran amid ongoing nationwide protests: report

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Secretary of State Marco Rubio discussed the possibility of U.S. intervention in Iran, according to a report.

The two leaders spoke by phone Saturday as Israel is on “high alert,” preparing for the possibility of U.S. military intervention in Iran, according to Reuters, citing multiple Israeli sources. A U.S. official confirmed the call to Fox News Digital but did not provide additional details.

The report comes as nationwide anti-regime demonstrations across Iran hit the two-week mark.

On Saturday, the Iranian regime triggered an internet “kill switch” in an apparent effort to conceal alleged abuses by security forces and as protests against it surged nationwide, according to a cybersecurity expert. The blackout reduced internet access to a fraction of normal levels.

KEANE WARNS IRANIAN REGIME TO TAKE TRUMP ‘DEAD SERIOUS’ ON PROTEST KILLING THREAT AMID ONGOING DEMONSTRATIONS

Secretary of State Marco Rubio holds his end-of-year press conference at the State Department in Washington, D.C., Dec. 19, 2025. (Kevin Mohatt/Reuters)

On Sunday, Iran’s parliament speaker warned that the U.S. military and Israel would be “legitimate targets” if America strikes the Islamic Republic.

Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf issued the threat as lawmakers rushed the dais in the Iranian parliament, shouting, “Death to America!” according to The Associated Press.

President Donald Trump offered support for the protesters on Saturday, writing on Truth Social that “Iran is looking at FREEDOM, perhaps like never before. The USA stands ready to help!!!”

IRANIAN MILITARY LEADER THREATENS PREEMPTIVE ATTACK AFTER TRUMP COMMENTS

In this frame grab from video obtained by the AP outside Iran, a masked demonstrator holds a picture of Iran’s Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi during a protest in Tehran, Iran, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026. (UGC via AP)

At a news conference Friday, Trump said Iran was facing mounting pressure as unrest spreads across the country.

“Iran’s in big trouble,” he said. “It looks to me that the people are taking over certain cities that nobody thought were really possible just a few weeks ago. We’re watching the situation very carefully.”

The president said the U.S. would respond forcefully if the regime resorts to mass violence.

“We’ll be hitting them very hard where it hurts. And that doesn’t mean boots on the ground, but it means hitting them very, very hard where it hurts,” he said.

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Protests in Iran intensify for the 12th day. (The National Council of Resistance of Iran)

Fox News Digital reached out to the State Department and White House for comment.

Fox News Digital’s Emma Bussey, Brie Stimson and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

World

Four killed, 20 injured in overnight Russian strikes across Ukraine

Published

11 hours ago

January 11, 2026

Press Room

Four killed, 20 injured in overnight Russian strikes across Ukraine

Published on
11/01/2026 – 14:33 GMT+1

Russia fired more than 150 drones overnight into Sunday targeting close to two dozen locations across Ukraine, killing at least four people and injuring 20 more.

Ukraine’s Air Forces say they intercepted 125 drones aerially but confirmed that at least 25 strike drones struck their targets.

They added that Moscow’s latest barrage mainly targeted Kharkiv, Kherson, Zaporizhzhia and Dnipropetrovsk, all of which were targeted in Saturday’s overnight strikes as well.

Local officials in the southern region of Zaporizhzhia say the strikes targeted residential areas and energy infrastructure. More than 385,000 homes were affected by electric, gas or water outages, at a critical time as temperatures plunged to 10 degrees below Celsius.

Regional lawmakers say service was restored to most of the affected households and areas by Sunday morning, but added that emergency work was still being carried out to restore power to the remaining homes.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Russia of timing their attacks with the cold peaks of winter as to maximise civilian suffering.

“They struck targets that have no military purpose whatsoever – energy infrastructure, residential buildings. They deliberately waited for freezing weather to make things worse for our people. This is deliberate, cynical Russian terror specifically against civilians,” wrote Zelenskyy in a post on X.

He also noted that this week had seen heightened Russian assault on Ukrainian cities, announcing that his country’s defence forces recorded thousands of attacks using a variety of different weapons.

“Over the course of this week, Russia launched almost 1,100 attack drones against Ukraine, more than 890 guided aerial bombs, and over 50 missiles of various types – ballistic, cruise, and even the Oreshnik medium-range ballistic missile.”

The Ukrainian leader thanked all units responsible for protecting the country and responding to attacks, and praised their tireless efforts and resilience.

He also called on allies to ensure his embattled country maintains “stable support”, in defence and diplomatic fields as coordinated dialogue efforts continue in search of peace.

Meanwhile, Russia says that one person was killed in Ukrainian strikes on the western city of Voronezh. Officials say a young woman succumbed to her wounds at an intensive care unit of a local hospital after debris from a drone fell on her house during Saturday’s attacks.

They added that at least three others were injured in the attacks which targeted more than 10 residential apartment buildings, private homes and a high school.

The city of Voronezh lies just 250 kilometres from the Ukrainian border and is home to approximately one million people. The attacks, which Kyiv have yet to confirm, came after the Kremlin’s major offensive on Ukraine in the early hours of Saturday.

Additional sources • AP