An influential Democratic senator who has paid dearly to back the US president’s big climate plan called on Thursday for a “pause” on subsidies for electric cars after the Treasury Department failed to finalize the terms of their provision, AFP reports. .

According to the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), the official name of the climate plan, subsidies for the purchase of an electric car should start on January 1 and reach $7,500. But the US Treasury Department says on its website that the final terms will be determined in March.

Currently, vehicles and their batteries simply have to be “assembled in North America” ​​to qualify for the subsidies. Among them are products produced in Canada and Mexico, which have long been in demand among the US neighbors.

But that’s not enough for Sen. Joe Manchin, who is calling for those subsidies to be suspended “until conditions are published that are consistent with the purpose of the IRA.”

“The announced rules follow the will of business and do not meet the substance of the law,” the Democratic senator said in a statement, “and only weaken our ability to become a more energy independent nation.”

Joe Manchin said he did not want the terms of the award to increase the United States’ dependence “on China and Russia for the raw materials and manufacturing needed to feed our nation,” since the two countries are among the largest suppliers.

The current rules may actually favor vehicles that don’t meet the original targets until the new conditions are published, he said.

The original plan called for vehicles eligible for subsidies to be “made in the USA” to benefit the US auto industry.

But the possibility has sparked a wave of protests both in North America, Canada and Mexico, which see the rules as at odds with a free trade agreement between the three countries, and in Europe, which fears a weakening of its industry, which is already suffering from rising energy costs due to the war. in Ukraine.

The topic was discussed during the state visit of French President Emmanuel Macron in early December, when the French delegation expressed optimism about the possible expansion of subsidies for European-made cars.