President Donald Trump has signed 143 executive orders since starting his second term in January. Considering he has spent nearly a quarter of his 107 days as president on the golf course, he’s putting quite a few signatures on official paper when he’s actually in the office, sometimes as many as a dozen in a day. More than a few of those executive orders have had a pretty significant impact on the international automotive market, including all variety of import tariffs and deregulation actions. If you, an automotive enthusiast, had a single day in the Oval Office to enact your own policy, what would you change?
Given the power of the president’s pen, what is the first thing you would implement to effect the automotive industry? You could mandate that every automaker selling vehicles in the U.S. produce at least one vehicle under $20,000, or put a cap on car loan interest rates. You could force all Americans to drive a brand new vehicle by banning all vehicle registrations older than 12 months; that would really get the economy rolling. You could name NASCAR the official sport of the United States. Maybe you want to ban a specific automaker from the U.S. market, you could just revoke their business license or something. There obviously aren’t any checks and balances anymore, so you can get away with anything you want.
Take your pick
I think if I were president for a day I’d announce a first-time electrified buyer cash rebate to help Americans get into a new fuel-efficient or battery-electric car. Not only does this rule spark a sales boom in a time when U.S. automakers are struggling to sell electrified cars, but it helps bring some cars down into the atmosphere of affordability that has been vacated in recent years. Perhaps if Americans had a little help on their car payments and weekly fuel costs, they wouldn’t be struggling quite as much with all of the other mounting costs of being alive in 2025. More money going into the economy helps keep thousands of businesses afloat in these troubled times.
With 24 hours of Presidential privilege, what’s the first thing you would change? There are so many great options that could be really helpful or seriously hurt the American automotive market. Drop your answer in the comments below and we’ll pick a few of our favorites to compile into a post later in the week.
