anted. It was not surprising, therefore, to see the Japanese share of the American new car market increase from around two percent in the mid 1960s to over 25 percent by 1988.
In the early 1980s, sales of new automobiles in the United States plummeted. At the same time, a combination of high gasoline prices, declining income levels, and the threat of unemployment caused sales of fuel efficient, foreign made automobiles to hold up better than those of almost all American manufactured models. One result was a significant market share increase for foreign made automobiles particularly so for Japanese manufactured automobiles. Another result was pressure placed on the federal government in the United States by both management and labor in the automotive industry to curtail the importation of foreign made automobiles to the United States.While the Reagan Administration throughout its tenure resisted the implementation of overt trade restrictions, it were never above government to government pressures to ease trade problems. Such government to government
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