The claim: As United Auto Workers strike against the leading U.S. automakers, former President Donald Trump took credit for saving the auto industry. “When I came into office, the auto industry was on its knees, gasping its last breaths after eight long years of Obama and Biden,” Trump told nonunion autoworkers Sept. 27 at Drake Enterprises in Clinton Township, outside Detroit.
had required that 62.5% of the components be manufactured in those three countries. Gary Hufbauer, an economist and trade expert at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, a Washington, D.C., think tank, said that although the USMCA changes tightened the auto production rules, they made little difference in the U.S. auto industry. In March 2018, Trump imposed a 25% tariff on steel imports and a 10% tariff on imported aluminum, with exemptions for Canada and Mexico.