President Donald Trump used a breathless caps-heavy blast on Truth Social to announce Friday that he had “approved TINY CARS to be built in America.”
“These cars of the very near future are inexpensive, safe, fuel efficient and, quite simply, AMAZING!!! START BUILDING THEM NOW!” the 79-year-old declared. “ENJOY!!!”
The post followed Trump’s recent fascination with the small, low-horsepower kei cars he encountered during visits to Japan, South Korea, and Malaysia.
Those vehicles dominate narrow city roads in Asia but currently fail to meet federal standards for new cars in the United States—standards Trump now wants to relax as part of a broader rollback of Biden-era fuel-efficiency rules.
“They’re very small, they’re really cute, and I said, ‘How would that do in this country?’” Trump told reporters as he outlined plans to green-light their production at the White House on Wednesday. “But we’re not allowed to make them in this country, and I think you’re gonna do very well with those cars, so we’re gonna approve those cars.”
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said he has been directed to “clear the deck” for domestic manufacturing of the mini-cars, and acknowledged that the vehicles would not be viable for major highways.
“Are they going to work on the freeways? Probably not,” Duffy said in an interview on CNBC. He argued that they may be better suited to dense cities and emphasized their price point, calling them “much more affordable than the other options that are on the market today.”
The path forward is far from simple. Ultra-compact cars of the kind Trump praised are either restricted to low-speed use or banned altogether in multiple states over concerns that they are too small, slow, and fragile to survive alongside the large trucks and SUVs ubiquitous on American roads.
Even in jurisdictions where they’re allowed, many are limited to private land or low-speed zones. Safety experts have long warned that the vehicles’ lightweight frames—designed for Asian markets with lower average driving speeds—do not provide adequate protection in collisions with full-size American vehicles.
Kei cars, named for the Japanese word for “lightweight,” make up roughly one-third of new-vehicle sales in Japan and benefit from tax breaks tied to strict limits on engine size, horsepower, and overall dimensions.
Trump’s order would clear the way for manufacturers such as Toyota to produce versions for the U.S. market once regulators rewrite the relevant rules.
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