More like they’ve dumped a few hundred billion into engineering compliance with said emissions rules, providing an excuse to jack up sales prices even further, and now they don’t want to waste that investment or accidentally lower the barrier to entry for any other manufacturer to compete.

Maybe they are slowly realizing that protectionism makes it a race to the bottom in the US, which makes them uncompetitive outside the US, thus making them even less relevant worldwide?

Learn it’s lesson too late and at the wrong time.