In the 80's Amercian car makers were the ones making junk, I owned a 1980 Honda Civics 3 door that I put 250,000 miles on and sold it for $450 dollars still running great. NO American car could do that, thank god the Japanese started making good cars or we would still be with GMC junk and fat unions. And even after the tariffs, the Amercian car makers went broke and we tax payers had to bale them out. I buy the best where ever it is made. Oh, my Dad bought a Chevy Citation, I believe a 1982, he said it was the worst car he ever owned, and they were made right here in OKC. Good bye GM!The tariffs did more than just protect Harley they protected automobile manufacturers. When you talk about the 80s there were no foriegn automobile manufacturers in the US that under cut and put American automobile company’s out of business. All of that foreign junk was imported and heavily tariffed so that it didn’t undercut American jobs by cheep Asian slave labor. I remember the large car shipping ships. Was a big deal back in the day. Why would anybody want to let in cheep care to put Americans out of jobs? At least that’s how it was viewed by some back in the day
Then to get around tariffs, I’m not sure who but these foreign entities started building their corporations in the US to get around the tariffs kind of like how some of these US manufacturers are going about now. Many of these same country’s but not all do not allow American corporations to own and run businesses in their territory’s. So it has never been a level playing field