Actually Reagen saved the US auto industry thru tariffs and quotas and trade deals that made sense.
Yes, like NAFTA. God Bless Ronald Reagan.
...by transferring wealth to a favored political constituency from an unfavored one. A tax increase by any name, it also rewards inefficient producers.
Those inefficient producers needed saving again 25 years later and Detroit finally got what it deserved after nearly a century of crony capitalism.
Thus is it always with politicians who try to defy the laws of economic gravity.
Any other industries you'd like to "save?" Steel - too late. Same reason. All they wanted was a little help for an infant industry - in 1850. But they still wanted the protection 100+ years later. That old teat must be pretty stretched out by now.