Less than two weeks before Donald J. Trump is set to stand trial on criminal charges in Manhattan, prosecutors who brought the case proposed a delay of up to 30 days, a surprising development in the first prosecution of a former U.S. president.

The Manhattan district attorney’s office, which accused Mr. Trump of covering up a sex scandal during and after the 2016 presidential campaign, said the delay would give Mr. Trump’s lawyers time to file a new lawsuit. view documents. The agency only recently obtained the records from federal prosecutors, who years ago investigated the same hush money payments at the center of the case.

The possible postponement of the trial, which is expected to begin with jury selection on March 25, would mark the latest delay to Trump’s expansive legal docket, which includes four criminal cases and several civil lawsuits.

The Manhattan case against Mr. Trump, who secured his third Republican presidential nomination this week, is expected to be the first to go to trial and could be the only one to do so before Election Day.

A criminal case against Mr. Trump in Washington, where he is accused of conspiring to overturn the 2020 election results, was initially scheduled to go to trial this month, but that has been postponed while Mr. Trump appeals to the Supreme Court.

A delay in the Manhattan case would most likely delight the former president, whose central strategy to combat all his legal entanglements is to delay the case as long as possible. If he is elected to a second term in November, criminal cases against him will come to a standstill until he is no longer in office.

Still, the judge overseeing the Manhattan case, Juan M. Merchan, will have to approve the delay, and he has made a point of moving the case forward every step of the way. It is unclear when he will rule. And until he does, it’s unclear what impact Trump’s other cases might have.

Weeks before national elections, India’s government abruptly announced it will begin enforcing a citizenship law that has been dormant since late 2019 after inciting deadly riots by opponents who called it anti-Muslim.

The seditious law grants Indian citizenship to persecuted Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, Jains, Parsees and Christians from some nearby countries. Muslims are expressly excluded.

In a characteristic clap of thunder, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government issued a brief statement Monday evening saying it had finalized details that would bring into force the law, known as the Citizenship Amendment Act.

The government’s move, just before India announces dates for elections expected in April and May, shows Modi is making good on a promise and could change the electoral math in districts with Hindu refugees who could benefit from the law .

Politics aside, the law is not expected to significantly change the demography of India’s diverse population of 1.4 billion people, at least not on its own. But it makes clear the power Mr. Modi is wielding to redefine the Indian republic, pushing aside any resistance to his vision of a Hinduism-first state.

The law spent more than four years in hibernation after protests by hundreds of thousands of Muslims and other Indians outraged by the idea that citizenship would be defined by reference to religious identity.

In February 2020, while President Donald J. Trump was on a state visit, riots broke out in the capital New Delhi. Entire neighborhoods were destroyed in the northeastern part of the city, where gas canisters were turned into makeshift bombs and thrown into mosques. At least 50 people were killed, most of them Muslims.

A high-profile protest camp at a place called Shaheen Bagh, run mainly by female protesters from various religious groups, lasted until late March before being dispersed. And then Covid-19 intervened, suppressing further protest.

The government justified the new rules as a humanitarian response to the plight of minorities in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan, India’s three major Muslim-majority neighbors. Yogi Adityanath, a Hindu monk who became a political ally of Mr. Modi, wrote on social media that saving communities “suffering from religious brutality” would “bring joy to humanity.”

It is difficult for many to accept this statement at face value. First, the inclusion of some countries and the exclusion of others seems arbitrary. On the other hand, Muslims who are persecuted for their faith, for example the Ahmadiyya and the Shias in Pakistan, are not eligible for Indian citizenship. The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights called the law “fundamentally discriminatory.”

To critics, the Citizenship Amendment Act appears to be part of a pincer movement against Muslims. It was created at the same time as a national citizenship registry that would allow the government to deport undocumented residents even if their families had lived in India for generations.

As Mr. Modi’s right-hand man, Amit Shah, said at the time: “Please understand the ‘chronology’: first the CAA,” and then the registry. In other words, the first non-Muslim refugees would receive citizenship. Then the remaining refugees would be expelled. More than a thousand ‘declared foreigners’ have been arrested in the northeastern state of Assam.

Protests erupted there and in several other states on Monday after the government announced enforcement of the citizenship law. Shaheen Ahmed, a PhD student in Kerala, said he and other students came out to protest across his state.

“We were demanding the rollback of the law when the police came and started beating us,” Mr Ahmed said.

One group that rejoiced at the news is a large community of lower-caste Hindus in West Bengal, whose ancestors came to India from Bangladesh. Their support for Mr Modi in the coming elections could tilt several parliamentary seats towards the majority he is expected to win anyway.

Other Hindu refugees from Pakistan had already acquired citizenship. Since 2016, more than 1,100 people have been granted this status in Mr Modi’s home state of Gujarat. The aim of the Citizenship Amendment Act will be to make these naturalizations possible at national level and make them more visible.

A federal judge in Manhattan on Thursday denied Donald J. Trump’s request to temporarily block writer E. Jean Carroll from collecting an $83.3 million civil defamation judgment against him, while the judge considers his request for a longer delay takes into consideration.

The ruling, which is just four paragraphs long, comes just days before Ms. Carroll is allowed to take action to collect her award. appealed in both cases.

In an effort to block Ms. Carroll from collecting on March 11, the former president last month asked the judge, Lewis A. Kaplan of the Federal District Court, to delay the due date until after he had ruled on Mr. Trump to make the ruling. thrown out and given a new trial.

On Wednesday, the former president’s lawyers filed a new request: that the judge not let Ms. Carroll start collecting until the judge rules on Mr. Trump’s earlier request for a stay.

But on Thursday, the judge — who presided over Ms. Carroll’s trial, which ended Jan. 26 — said in an order that Trump’s professed need for a so-called administrative stay was the former president’s own fault.

“Mr. Trump’s current situation is the result of his own slow action,” Judge Kaplan wrote. “He has had to sort out his finances since January 26.”

Mr. Trump’s lawyer, Alina Habba, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the ruling. Ms. Carroll’s attorney, Roberta A. Kaplan, declined to comment.

The battle over the verdict is just one of many legal and financial entanglements facing the former president. He faces four criminal charges, with the first trial set to begin March 25 in Manhattan. And now that he faces the prospect of time behind bars, he must also find the money to meet the judgments against him.

In a separate case, Mr. Trump is facing a judgment of more than $450 million imposed by a New York state judge in a civil fraud case brought by Attorney General Letitia James. The judge, Arthur F. Engoron, sided with Ms. James, concluding that Mr. Trump had fraudulently inflated his assets to obtain favorable loan terms and other financial benefits.

To prevent Ms. James from seizing his assets while he appeals Judge Engoron’s ruling, Mr. Trump must either come up with the more than $450 million or secure a bond from an outside company. The same requirement applies to the $83.3 million judgment in the defamation case.

The bond is a promise from the company offering it to cover Trump’s judgment if he loses his appeal and doesn’t pay up. In return, Mr. Trump must pay the company compensation and pledge collateral, including as much cash as possible.

Mr. Trump recently asked a state appeals court to accept only a $100 million bond in the civil fraud case. It would be “impossible” to obtain a bond for the full amount, that is, $454 million, including interest, Mr. Trump’s lawyers said.

One appeals court judge denied his request, but Trump could try again next month with a full five-judge panel of the appeals court.

Unless that panel gives him a break, Trump will have to post bond for the full amount before March 25, the day his first criminal trial begins.

Rescue workers in the southern Ukrainian city of Odessa recovered the bodies of a mother and a baby from the rubble of an apartment building on Sunday, bringing the death toll to 10 in a Russian attack two days ago. President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said delays in the country’s allies in providing air defense had contributed to the deaths.

The indictment by Mr. Zelenskiy appeared to reflect frustration that Ukraine’s ability to resist Moscow’s military campaign and protect its own citizens has been undermined by the inability of the U.S. House of Representatives to pass a military aid package of many billions of dollars.

The drone hit the building on Friday night and emergency workers have been sifting through the rubble since then. Odessa, a Black Sea port city, was a key target of Moscow’s large-scale invasion two years ago and in recent months Russian forces have regularly attacked the city with drone strikes, often launched from Crimea. However, this weekend’s attack has sparked outrage among Ukrainians.

Rescuers said the mother and baby were found together. “The mother tried to protect her 8-month-old child,” said a statement from the state emergency service on the social messaging service Telegram. “They were found in a tight embrace.”

A three-year-old girl was among eight people injured, Mr. Zelensky said in a speech last night, saying Ukrainian citizens are more vulnerable because the country’s armed forces lack air defenses that could shoot down the Shahed drones. that Iran supplied to Moscow.

“The world has enough missile defense systems, systems to protect against Shahed drones and missiles. And delaying the delivery of weapons to Ukraine and missile defense systems to protect our people unfortunately leads to such losses,” he said. He did not specifically refer to U.S. aid, but the country is by far Ukraine’s largest military donor.

“When lives are lost and partners simply play internal political games or disputes that limit our defenses, it is impossible to understand. It is unacceptable,” Mr Zelensky said.

According to estimates, more than 10,000 civilians have been killed in the past two years UN data, the vast majority by explosions rather than gunfire. Air raid alerts have become a fact of life for many Ukrainians, and the country has become dependent on the air defense of the United States and other NATO allies.

But a US bill that includes $60.1 billion in military aid for the government in Kiev, including for air defense, has been languishing in the House of Representatives for months, stalled by opposition from some Republicans and former President Donald J. Trump, who is probably the Republican. candidate for president.

Since the start of the large-scale invasion, Mr. Zelensky has repeatedly urged the country’s allies for more weapons, often using strong language that has sometimes irritated some leaders in NATO countries. He has argued that defending Ukraine against Moscow is crucial for European security as a whole and for democratic values ​​more broadly.

Ukrainian military commanders have also said that a lack of ammunition and artillery has made it harder to resist Russian advances on the battlefield, not least around the town of Avdiivka in the eastern Donetsk region, which fell last month of Russian troops.

Ukraine’s counter-offensive, which began last June, failed to achieve its objectives and since then Moscow has gradually regained the initiative in the war, seizing small swaths of territory amid heavy fighting. Military experts say Ukraine faces a difficult year on the battlefield, especially if a lack of military aid forces the country to severely ration ammunition.

A wave of lawsuits threatens to delay shareholder votes on the long-delayed merger of former President Donald J. Trump’s social media company and a cash-rich shell company.

Two early founders of Trump Media & Technology Group have filed a lawsuit to maintain their ownership interest in the company, the parent company of online posting platform Truth Social. The lawsuit, filed under seal in Delaware Chancery Court on Wednesday by a partnership led by Wes Moss and Andy Litinsky, alleges that Trump Media is attempting to dilute its ownership stake in the company, of which Mr. Trump is a majority owner.

The lawsuit seeks an expedited hearing in Delaware state court ahead of the March 22 vote by Digital World Acquisition Corp. shareholders. about the merger with Trump Media. Digital World is the special purpose acquisition company created to raise money from investors in an initial public offering and use that money to find a private company like Trump Media to buy.

Mr. Moss and Mr. Litinsky were contestants on Mr. Trump’s real estate television show, “The Apprentice,” and went to him in January 2021 with the idea of ​​starting a social media company.

Former Digital World CEO Patrick Orlando has also filed suit in Delaware to acquire additional shares in the company. And Digital World has filed its own lawsuit in Florida state court, arguing that Mr. Orlando, who was the sponsor of the IPO, was not entitled to more shares because of his “avarice, incompetence and general refusal to act.” in the company’s stock trading. best interest.

Digital World raised $300 million in an initial public offering in September 2021 and about a month later announced its planned merger with Trump Media, which needs the deal to operate Truth Social. Mr. Trump’s social media company has said in regulatory filings that it might not survive without new sources of funding.

In a filing with regulators on Friday, Digital World raised the prospect that Mr Orlando, who remains a board member, would reject the merger. Mr. Orlando’s group owns about 15 percent of Digital World’s shares; most of the remaining shares are owned by approximately 400,000 retail investors. Another filing raised the prospect of possible lawsuits that could delay the merger.

After the merger, Mr. Trump would own 79 million shares of Trump Media. Based on Digital World’s current price of $39 per share, Trump’s stake would be valued at $3 billion. The possible merger comes at a time when he needs to come up with the money to pay a $454 million fine following a New York judge’s ruling in a civil fraud case.

Merging with Digital World would give Trump Media not only an influx of cash to fund its operations, but also publicly traded stock that could be used to finance acquisitions. As chairman of Trump Media, the former president was given the lion’s share of the stock because of the value of his name to the company’s success. He would be the largest shareholder if the merger with the listed company is completed.

Shares of Digital World have soared as Trump moves closer to securing the Republican nomination for president and with the prospect of the deal closing later this month. The stock price has risen even though advertising on Truth Social has been mediocre.

Mr. Orlando’s firm, which sponsored Digital World, would become Trump Media’s second-largest shareholder.

Orlando’s lawsuit comes months after he resigned as CEO of Digital World and as a settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission was being negotiated. Last summer, Digital World agreed to pay an $18 million fine to resolve allegations that it had improper merger discussions with Trump Media before its IPO. SPACs are not supposed to have a deal in prospect before their IPO

In the settlement agreement, Digital World’s CEO, who was not named but identified by his job title, was described by regulators as playing a significant role in the early deal discussions. In the lawsuit filed against Mr. Orlando, Digital World said that Mr. Orlando had received formal notice from the SEC that he may be subject to enforcement action.

Mr. Orlando has not been accused of any wrongdoing. He declined to comment and his attorney did not return a request for comment.

When former President Donald J. Trump was indicted for the first, a second, a third and a fourth last year, he and his legal team went through disbelief, anger and the recognition that he would have to face juries for much of 2024. as he campaigned to return to the White House.

But even as Mr. Trump turned the charges against him into a rallying cry for his supporters and tried to hijack courtrooms for his political ends, his lawyers looked for ways to delay the trials by using pretrial investigations to move the proceedings into a legal to bring about an impasse. .

It wasn’t even clear to them that the strategy would work. But they nonetheless threw all sorts of arguments at judges designed to push some or all of the trials past Election Day, while a victory for Mr. Trump would provide him with opportunities to delay judgment even further or wipe out the charges entirely.

The substantial success they have achieved came into clearer focus Wednesday, when the Supreme Court decided to uphold one of its long legal arguments: that presidents are virtually immune from prosecution for actions they take while in office.

The justices’ choice means that the federal trial of Trump on charges of conspiring to overturn the 2020 election, originally scheduled to begin next week, now appears unlikely to begin before September.

The timing of a new case will improve slightly on Friday. Judge Aileen M. Cannon, who is overseeing Mr. Trump’s trial on federal charges of mishandling classified documents after he left office and then obstructing the government’s efforts to retrieve them, is likely to set a new start date for that procedure, which was originally scheduled to begin at the end of May.

Federal prosecutors and Mr. Trump’s lawyers have a deadline of Thursday to submit their requests for a new start date for the documents process.

The case in Georgia in which Mr Trump is accused of trying to undermine his 2020 election loss in that state is bogged down in pre-trial drama about the conduct of the prosecutor who filed the charges.

If things continue to get in Mr. Trump’s way, it is possible — though by no means certain — that he will go to trial in just one case before November, in Manhattan, where he is charged in connection with hush-money payments to a porn site . star in the final weeks of the 2016 campaign.

Even the possibility that he may face just one or two trials this year represents a victory of sorts for Mr. Trump and his legal team. It also highlights the complexities of trying to prosecute a former president who is closing in on the 2024 Republican nomination and could very well take the oath of office again on January 20.

This is “what lawyers do all the time for clients with the right resources, and across the country there are just many more people paying attention to this particular defendant,” said Chuck Rosenberg, a former U.S. attorney and FBI official.

But there’s still a lot of legal wrangling ahead, and the proceedings at the federal courthouse in Fort Pierce, Florida, on Friday, when Judge Cannon is likely to set a new trial date in the secret-documents case, underlines the legal and logistical complications.

Judge Cannon has already said she is inclined to make some “reasonable adjustments” to the timing of the trial. Several decisions made by Judge Cannon in recent months about the pace of the case have made it virtually impossible for the trial to begin as originally scheduled on May 20, and pretrial maneuvering by Mr. Trump’s legal team has shown how disputes over how to handle the highly sensitive material at the heart of the indictment can ruin the proceedings.

On Wednesday, Judge Cannon denied a highly unusual request by Trump’s lawyers to access a secret government file detailing a trove of classified evidence that prosecutors said was neither useful nor relevant to his defense.

Had Judge Cannon granted the request, legal experts said, it would have fallen far outside the normal procedures laid out in the Classified Information Procedures Act, the federal law that governs the use of classified material in public trials.

But even as he ruled against Trump, Judge Cannon seemed to suggest he was different from most criminal defendants. She did not fully agree with the position of Jack Smith, the special prosecutor, that the facts in the case did not justify “a departure from the normal process.”

“The court cannot speak with such confidence about this first-ever criminal prosecution of a former president of the United States — once the nation’s top classifying authority on many of the documents the special counsel is now trying to withhold from him,” wrote she.

The Supreme Court, which helped shape former President Donald J. Trump, threw him a legal lifeline Wednesday night, making a decision that significantly helped him delay his federal trial on charges of conspiring to overturn the 2020 election.

By deciding to adopt Trump’s claim that presidents enjoy near-total immunity from prosecution for any official action while in office — a legal theory rejected by two lower courts and one that few experts say has any basis in the Constitution — the judges the former president at least several months before a trial on election interference charges can begin.

It is not out of the question that Mr. Trump could still appear before a jury in the case in the Federal District Court in Washington before Election Day. At this point, the legal calendar suggests that if the justices rule before the end of the Supreme Court’s term in June and determine that Mr. Trump is not immune from prosecution, the trial could still begin in late September or October.

But each delay increases the likelihood that voters won’t get a chance to hear evidence that Trump tried to undermine the last election before deciding whether to support him in the current election.

If Mr. Trump succeeds in delaying the trial until after Election Day and wins, he could use the powers of his office to try to dismiss the election interference charge altogether. Additionally, Justice Department policy precludes prosecution of a sitting president, meaning that once he is sworn in, the federal trial he faces could likely be delayed until after he leaves office.

On the face of it, Wednesday night’s Supreme Court ruling was a purely logistical decision. The judges decided to suspend trial preparations while they reviewed a lower court’s rejection of the immunity defense. They organized a hearing on the issue at the end of April.

In practical terms, however, the court’s decision delayed the process of resolving the immunity debate, confirming what appeared to be a last-ditch move by Mr. Trump’s legal team to find a way to keep pushing back a trial date. until the date of the trial. campaign was over.

A spokesman for Jack Smith, the special counsel handling the Washington election case, declined to comment on the court’s ruling. Within Mr. Trump’s camp, the court’s ruling was seen as a major victory, but not a decisive one.

A year ago, when Mr. Trump was first criminally charged in Manhattan and then, over the next five months, charged three more times — in Florida, Washington and Georgia — it seemed he would doing. spending much of 2024 before a jury. But if events get in his way, he could only appear in court once before the November elections.

In that case, a state judge in Manhattan set a March 25 start date for the former president’s trial on charges of arranging hush money payments to a porn star in an effort to prevent a scandal on the eve of the 2016 election.

And on Friday, a federal judge in Florida will hold a hearing to turn back the clock on Trump’s other federal trial — the one in which he is accused of mishandling dozens of classified documents after leaving office. That process was supposed to begin in May, but now may or may not happen before Election Day.

The Georgia case is also embroiled in pretrial clashes that are casting doubt on when, or even if, the case will proceed.

The election interference case in Washington should have been the first of Mr. Trump’s four criminal cases to go before a jury. Months ago, the judge overseeing the case, Tanya S. Chutkan, set March 4 as the trial date.

But then Trump filed a motion to dismiss the case, arguing that he enjoyed full immunity from the charges because they stemmed from actions he committed as president. Although the claim had no precedent and violated basic legal and constitutional principles, it had strong appeal to Mr. Trump’s lawyers: Once the claim was filed, Judge Chutkan had to stay the underlying case until the issue of immunity was resolved dissolved.

Earlier this month, a federal appeals court in Washington weighed in on the issue, rejecting the immunity defense in a unanimous and scathing ruling that found that Mr. Trump was subject to federal criminal law like every other American.

He then asked the Supreme Court to stay the trial while the justices decided whether to take up the issue, perhaps hoping less that the justices would agree with him on the merits of his claims than that they would review the case. would take over. ask questions and take the time to make a decision.

And that’s exactly what the court did on Wednesday.

The question of when the trial will ultimately take place is complicated by Judge Chutkan’s insistence that Trump waste no time preparing for the proceedings as long as the pause in the case remains in effect. She has suggested in court papers that the former president, in the spirit of fairness, should have an extra day to prepare for anyone lost to the stay.

Judge Chutkan froze the election case on December 13. That means that if she sticks to her decision, she will owe Mr Trump another 82 days of preparation time – equivalent to the period between December 13 and the originally scheduled trial date in March. 4. If the Supreme Court rules on the immunity decision in June and trial preparations resume immediately, the additional 82 days could push a trial date back to September.

At that point, the general election campaign would be in full swing — and there would be no guarantee that the process could be completed before Election Day.

In a concession to automakers and unions, the Biden administration plans to relax elements of one of its most ambitious strategies to combat climate change: limits on tailpipe emissions intended to encourage Americans to switch from gas-powered cars to electric vehicles. to three people familiar with the plan.

Rather than requiring automakers to rapidly ramp up electric vehicle sales in the coming years, the government would give automakers more time, with a sharp increase in sales not needed until after 2030, these people said. They asked to remain anonymous because the settlement has not yet been finalized. The administration plans to publish the final rule in early spring.

The change comes as President Biden faces intense crosswinds as he runs for re-election while trying to tackle climate change. He aims to reduce CO2 emissions from gasoline vehicles, which are the largest source of greenhouse gases in the United States.

At the same time, Mr. Biden needs the cooperation of the auto industry and political support from the unionized auto workers who supported him in 2020 but now worry that an abrupt transition to electric vehicles would cost jobs. At the same time, consumer demand is not what automakers had hoped, with potential buyers deterred by sticker prices and the relative scarcity of charging stations.

Sensing an opening, former President Donald J. Trump, the Republican front-runner, has seized on electric cars, falsely warning the public that they “don't work” and telling autoworkers that Mr. Biden's policies are “madness ” is and that he would do the same. deaf on “the first day” of his return to the White House.

Last spring, the Environmental Protection Agency proposed the strictest limits ever on tailpipe emissions. The rules would be so strict that carmakers could only comply by selling a huge number of zero-emission vehicles in a relatively short time.

The EPA designed the proposed regulations so that 67 percent of new car and light truck sales would be all-electric by 2032, up from 7.6 percent by 2023, a radical change for the U.S. auto market.

That remains the goal. But as they finalize regulations, government officials are adjusting the plan to slow the pace at which automakers would have to comply so that electric vehicle sales would increase more gradually through 2030 but rise sharply after that.

The change in pace is a response to automakers who say more time is needed to build a national network of charging stations and drive down the cost of electric vehicles, and to unions who want more time to try to build new factories for electric cars. that are opening up across the country, especially in the south.

But delaying the rule's strictest requirements could come at a cost to the climate after the hottest year on record.

An ambitious first plan

Delaying the sharp increase in electric vehicle sales until after 2030 would still eliminate about the same amount of auto emissions by 2055 as the original proposal, according to EPA models. But it would mean that in the short term the nation would continue pumping car emissions into the atmosphere. Scientists say every year contributes to the government's efforts to prevent the planet from falling into even deadlier and more expensive climate disasters.

“There will be more rapid warming if emissions from the U.S. transportation sector do not decline before 2030,” said James Glynn, a senior scholar at Columbia University's Center on Global Energy Policy.

Scientists have warned that if the Earth's average temperature rises by more than 1.5 degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial levels, humans would struggle to adapt to increasingly violent storms, floods, fires, heat waves and other disruptions.

The planet has already warmed by about 1.2 degrees Celsius.

Ali Zaidi, Mr. Biden's senior climate adviser, declined to discuss the details of the final settlement. But he said in an interview that Mr. Biden's climate policies, combined with record federal investments in renewable energy, would still help meet the president's goal of cutting the nation's greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030 .

“I feel very good about how our policies, including regulatory measures, are aligned to enhance our ability to meet our 2030 targets and prepare for the longer-term path,” Mr Zaidi said.

Still, experts say it is uncertain whether Mr. Biden can achieve his twin goals of cutting the country's greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030 and eliminating them by 2050, a goal that scientists say all countries must achieve to avoid the most catastrophic impacts of prevent climate change. .

Attentive unions

Support from the Labor Party has been an important part of Biden's political coalition and his portrayal of himself as a fighter for the middle class.

That support was threatened last spring when the Environmental Protection Agency proposed new tailpipe emissions limits. Soon after, Shawn Fain, president of the United Auto Workers, wrote that the union was withholding its endorsement of Mr. Biden's reelection bid because of “concerns about the transition to electric vehicles.”

The union is wary of electric vehicles because fewer workers are needed to assemble and many electric vehicle factories are being built in states with few unions.

In public comments on the proposed rule, the United Auto Workers urged the Biden administration to relax the timeline for compliance so that it “increases stringency more gradually and occurs over a longer period of time.” Union leaders repeated that request in conversations with senior White House officials, including Mr. Zaidi, over the past six months. Biden administration officials said the union's comments had “resonated.”

When the union went on strike against Ford, General Motors and Stellantis last fall, partly over fears about the industry's transition to electric vehicles, Mr. Biden sought to assuage their concerns and became the first president to direct workers to the picket line stood. .

In early January, the EPA sent a revised version of its auto emissions rule with the longer time frame to the White House. Weeks later, the United Auto Workers endorsed Mr. Biden.

A union spokesman declined multiple requests to interview Mr. Fain.

After approval, Mr Trump called Mr Fain a “dope” on Truth Social, his social media site. “He supported Biden's 'vision' of all electric vehicles, which will require far fewer workers to make each car, but, importantly, are not wanted in large numbers by consumers, and will ALL be made in China,” the wrote Mr Trump. .

Barry Rabe, a professor of public policy at the University of Michigan, noted how Mr. Trump has focused on concerns about electric vehicles that are pervading this car-making state, one of the few swing states where the election is likely to take place. decided.

“Trump has been very effective in using wedge issues in the past,” Rabe said. “Every time he comes to state, this comes up. And this isn't abstract in Michigan, it's a real question. 'Which factory am I going to work in?'”

Concerned car manufacturers

Although a record 1.2 million electric vehicles were sold in the United States last year, growth is slowing even though new regulations would require a nearly tenfold increase in such sales within just eight years.

While buyers of new electric vehicles are eligible for up to $7,500 in federal tax credits, only 18 models currently qualify for that full credit, compared to about two dozen last year. One of those eligible models, the Ford F-150 Lightning, an all-electric pickup that once had a waiting list of 200,000 units, sold 24,000 last year, well below Ford's forecast of 150,000.

And while EV charger construction is growing, nearly doubling from about 87,000 in 2019 to more than 172,000 last year, analyst project that the country will need more than two million chargers by 2030 to support the growth in the number of electric vehicles envisioned by the proposed rules.

All that worries car companies, which have invested about $146 billion in electric vehicle research and development over the past three years. Auto companies would face billions of dollars a year in fines if emissions associated with car sales exceed the limits of the new regulations, according to the Center for Automotive Research, a nonprofit organization based in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

The Alliance for Automotive Innovation, which represents 42 auto companies that produce about 97 percent of new vehicles sold in the United States, has asked the government for the same delay as the United Auto Workers.

“The pace is important,” John Bozzella, president of the alliance, said in an interview. “Give the market and supply chains a chance to catch up, ensure customer choice, bring more public charging online.”

Analysts say the current slowdown in electric vehicle sales is to be expected because the market for early adopters – typically wealthier coastal residents who have bought an EV as a second car – is saturated.

“It may take some time before the larger middle-class market is ready to embrace buying plug-in cars,” said K. Venkatesh Prasad, senior vice president of research at the Center for Automotive Research.

It could be easier to sell many more electric vehicles after 2030, Mr Prasad said.

“New technology is emerging, prices are changing and consumer behavior is changing,” he said. “If you were running one of these companies and you got some extra time, you would use every second. You can do things that will allow you to better source components, test new technologies, battery technology will become cheaper and allow people to drive longer distances, there will be more investment in charging infrastructure, and in the minds of consumers you would can see more acceptance of this.”

Some analysts said the trade-off, loosening rules to give auto companies and workers what they want, could be worth it if it helps Mr. Biden win the election, as Mr. Trump has made clear that if he wins , he plans to completely roll back the rules.

David Victor, co-director of the Deep Decarbonization Initiative at the University of California San Diego, said: “You have a few more years of emissions, but you increase the chance that the rule will stick.”