The "protectionism" you cite is due to crash regulation and emissions standards.

This is unadulterated cope.

America has 40% more traffic fatalities per km driven than the European Union and has less stringent emissions standards (especially for the Hilux's category, which is actually why giant SUVs became so popular over the years).

The US government doesn't even bother with these spurious pretexts anymore. They openly admit that they want to coddle local automakers to ensure that the government has a supply chain of transportation vehicles in wartime. It's quite literally socialism for the entire American auto sector.

	▲	TitaRusell 3 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		This in itself would not be so bad. After all Korea and Japan supported their auto industry. But the American car companies are just completely unwilling to make cars that the rest of the world wants to buy.
	▲	rootusrootus 3 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		> coddle local automakers Are you only including automakers headquartered in the US, or are you also including automakers who have a bunch of factories in the US?
	▲	bluGill 3 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Irrelevant - they still don't meet our standards.