I'm a free-marketer too, but I insist on it being a two-way street.
Up until 2 years ago, I was in management in a Jap auto supplier company located in Tennessee. I saw every day the ways in which Japanese companies worked to evade U.S. laws on everything from income taxes and property taxes to import duties and fair pricing of imported goods. To the Japanese, you're only "wrong" if you get caught.
Steel is a perfect example: we bought Japanese steel from Japanese companies at a considerably lower price than our own parent company could buy the same steel in Japan.
That, gentlemen, is called dumping.
How was this done? The Japanese government provides their steel companies with massive tax breaks, because they know the importance to national security of having a viable steel industry.
And because they don't blindly believe everything the Wall Street Journal writes.
You nailed it Redbob. Where would Harley Davidson be today if not for Reagan. And Willie Green's got it together also.