Trump Thinks Renault Is Still Shipping Cars To The U.S.

U.S. President Donald Trump dropped another fun little nugget for the media to fact-check, and this time, it was about French automaker Renault.

Last week, during a diatribe about trade practices between the U.S. and Europe, Trump claimed that Renault was still shipping cars across the Atlantic, as reported by Autonews Europe. Of course, in reality, they haven’t done so for 30 some years.

“They put up tremendous barriers to our doing business in Europe,” said Trump. “Our farm products, very hard to get them in. Our cars, very hard to get them in, and yet they send Mercedes, they send BMW, they send Volkswagen, Renault, in case of France.”

He reportedly also mispronounced the French carmaker as “Ren-alt”, as opposed to “Ren-oh”.

While we’re pretty sure that his claim is backed by the fact that in the 80s, Renault partnered with AMC (American Motors Corporation), which resulted in cars such as the Renault Alliance (a U.S. version of the Renault 9) being built at AMC’s Kenosha plant in Wisconsin – the fact remains that the partnership did not survive into the 90s, with Renault eventually ending imports.

Renault Alliance Convertible

Back in 2017, former Renault CEO Carlos Ghosn was asked whether his company would follow rival PSA Group in returning to the United States, to which he replied that the U.S. market was too competitive and that he would rather focus on China and Russia as far as overseas exports were concerned.

Also read: Trump Set To Revoke California’s Ability To Determine Its Own Emissions Standards

Speaking of the PSA Group, it has been officially reported that the Peugeot brand will spearhead its North American (USA, Canada) comeback. Right now, the French brand is in the process of homologating vehicles for the U.S. market, a process that’s expected to take several years.