JAPAN & SOUTH KOREA: STILL VIRTUALLY CLOSED TO U.S. VEHICLES

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Truth With Speedzzter has long pointed out the predatory nature of Japan's domestic auto market. Japan's decades of unfair restraints on automotive imports combined with its predatory export/invasion practices are generally ignored by both the internationalist Council on Foreign Relations-types and most clueless "Consumer Distorts" appliance motorists.

With the U.S. reeling under 10.5% unemployment, monsterous trade deficits, the loss of a third of U.S. industrial jobs since the 1980s, and Detroit in tatters, the vast unfairness and stupidity of tolerating Japanese protectionism should be obvious.

For skeptics, Gary Hoffman, a correspondent with AOL Autos, fills in some of details in a brilliant column entitled "Why Don't We Sell More Cars In Japan?"

Hoffman writes,

While Korea and Japan no longer directly restrict U.S. imports, they do put up barriers to them, said Chris Vitale, president of a Michigan-based group, FairImage.org, which promotes open trade in the auto industry.

"For all intents and purposes, the Japanese market is closed to everyone," Vitale said. "No one gets a foothold." . . .

Vitale and other U.S. critics of Japan and Korea point to "barriers to entry" -- obstacles that may be more effective than tariffs and quotas. They include inspections, complicated distribution systems and taxation.

The result is a virtual shut-out for American producers in Japan and Korea.

Chevrolet sold one vehicle in Japan for every 1,300 Toyotas sold in the U.S.

Ford sold about 2,500 vehicles in Korea last year, compared to nearly 330,000 Hyundai and Kia vehicles imported to the U.S.

Those are shameful statistics. Every dealer, salesperson, advertising firm, transplant factory worker, race team, politician, and consumer collaborating with the Japanese (and now the protectionist Korean) invasion and occupation of the U.S. auto market ought to be made to answer for their support of a system that permits such an imbalance.