Former President Donald Trump said Monday that it “doesn’t make sense” why the U.S. compares so poorly to other countries with “unbelievably fast” bullet trains — but while in office Trump did little to move such projects forward and in fact canceled funding for a major one in California.
Trump’s comments came during a conversation with Elon Musk where Trump applauded the tech CEO’s Boring, which is tunneling for Tesla cars to run under the Las Vegas convention center. During the confab on X, Musk’s social media platform, Trump heaped praise on high-speed rail, saying bullet trains are comfortable and have “no problems.”
“We don’t have anything like that in this country, not even close, and it doesn’t make sense that we don’t. Doesn’t make sense,” Trump said.
Trump’s right — even the fastest rail in America doesn’t exceed 150 mph, a far cry from the blistering 200-mph of Japan’s Hayabusa train, for instance. But pushing forward policies to build out high-speed rail was not a priority when Trump was in office. His budget requests regularly called for cuts to Amtrak, which operates some high-speed trains in portions of the Northeast Corridor.
