How to give American car buyers, environmentalists, free traders, and American auto workers more of what they want

One of the first things you learn in economics class is the concept of trade-offs: you can’t have everything you want. This is relevant to the debate over electric cars: U.S. autoworkers want to keep their jobs. Many U.S. drivers still prefer cars with internal combustion engines. Environmentalists want Americans to buy electric cars. And free traders want free trade. Something has to be sacrificed.

Or is it? There is a path that each party can take to achieve many of their objectives. First, eliminate EV mandates and subsidies. Second, remove the 100% tariffs that President Biden imposed on EVs from China and allow them to be imported duty-free. Free trade would give low- and middle-income Americans the opportunity to buy relatively cheap imported EVs. More people driving EVs would make environmentalists happy. And eliminating mandates and subsidies would allow U.S. automakers to focus on what they do best: making internal combustion engine vehicles. This would keep U.S. auto workers employed and keep certain skills in use.