CASE TV Ad Urges President Trump to Stand Firm Against Volkswagen Dumping Cheap Cars on the U.S. Market

April 27, 2018

(Arlington, Virginia) – On the heels of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s visit with President Trump, a national consumer advocacy group is airing a TV ad urging the president to not allow automaker Volkswagen to dump its mountainous inventory of bought-back vehicles on the U.S. market. The German government owns 20 percent of Volkswagen.  VIEW AD HERE:

Consumer Action for a Strong Economy (CASE), a free-market oriented consumer advocacy organization, is airing the ad as hundreds of thousands of VW’s sit in 37 remote facilities across the nation as a result of a buy-back program with their customers after they were caught manipulating auto emissions. VW still maintains many of the vehicles in the hopes that their proposed fix will be approved by the EPA, allowing the cars to be resold in the U.S. market.

Last year Volkswagen pleaded guilty to fraud and numerous other trade violations for deliberately rigging their vehicles to register higher fuel efficiency of their TDI diesel engines, violating U.S. law and defrauding consumers. Part of their settlement with the U.S. government involved an option for their customers to sell their cars back to VW, leading to the glut of autos currently stored in U.S. facilities.

Said CASE President Matthew Kandrach, “We are all for consumers getting a great deal, but the situation with Volkswagen is very concerning in the wake of the emissions scandal which led to their overflowing inventory of vehicles. Flooding our streets with heavily discounted or below-cost vehicles could lead to a tremendous disruption of our automotive market and be especially harmful to U.S. automakers. This would also punish foreign automakers who not only played by the rules, but also invested heavily in building U.S. factories and hiring tens of thousands of American workers.”

CASE Vice President and spokesman Gerard Scimeca noted that the current domestic auto market is sluggish, with most analysts predicting a decrease in sales overall in 2018. “With gas prices and interest rates heading higher, a glut of bargain-discounted cars on the market could exacerbate the situation. This short-term boom could lead to long-term headaches for U.S. automakers and workers, and ultimately that’s bad news for U.S. consumers across the economy.”