The U.S. government has rolled back the planned ban on new cars with combustion engines as well as tightened emissions requirements. Lee Zeldin, the newly appointed U.S. environmental chief, rescinded the “Endangerment Finding” regulation, which until now formed the basis of U.S. climate policy in the transport sector. The decision was officially supported by President Donald Trump and marks a clear shift in American industrial and environmental policy.
Commenting on this, Markus Buchheit, a member of the ESN Group, said:
“Donald Trump shows that economic common sense and a technology-neutral industrial policy do not have to be contradictions—unlike the European Commission and its green paternalistic agenda.
The United States is thereby correcting a decisive mistake. The EU, by contrast, is stubbornly sticking to its centrally planned ban on combustion engines from 2035—and is willfully destroying hundreds of thousands of jobs in the automotive and supplier industries.
While Friedrich Merz publicly laments the end of the combustion engine, his party has long since paved the way for it in the European Parliament and in the Council. The Union is playing a double game: in Brussels they dutifully vote with the Greens and Socialists—while in Berlin they pose as the opposition. That is pure deception of the voters.
Germany doesn’t need feints and show debates, but a clear U-turn in industrial policy. We need affordable mobility, technology neutrality, and a reliable industrial base—instead of green dogmas and Brussels bureaucracy experiments.”
