You might’ve thought the US auto market was free and open with a 2.5% import tax and more than half of car sales coming from foreign brands.
But it’s really one of the most protected and subsidized industries in the world:
- $80 billion federal bailout
- $17 billion in subsidies from state governments, including tax breaks and job training funds
- Decades-long pressure campaign to get Japanese automakers to limit exports and move production to the US
- 25% special tariff on trucks and SUVs that was actually a 1964 trade retaliation against European tariffs on US chickens
And this was all long before federal and state government support for hybrids and EVs and recent tariffs on Chinese EVs.

In 2008, GM and Chrysler were losing billions of dollars and on the brink of insolvency. The $80 billion federal rescue package is widely credited as saving the US auto industry, although opinions among top economists were deeply divided at the time. marketplace.org

The $17 billion in state government subsidies is an estimate from a research group looking at the incentives offered by states to entice automakers to set up plants in their jurisdictions. reuters.com

US pressure to get Japan to limit auto exports to the US and move production to the US started in the 1970s and continued into the 1990s. The issue was pressed at the highest level by multiple American presidents.

The “Chicken Tax” on pickup trucks and SUVs causes bizarre distortions in the market, including efforts to import trucks in parts or by installing extra seats and then later removing them to reclassify imported vehicles. wsj.com

My point is not that the US government shouldn’t protect and support its auto industry—there are many legitimate reasons like jobs, manufacturing base, national security—but that every major auto-producing country provides heavy state support for its own auto industry.