Free Republic

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. The accelerating woes of Ford and GM and the ongoing crisis in auto parts have produced vows from Detroit that business-as-usual won't continue. Yet unless business-as-usual in U.S. trade policy ends, too, and Washington imposes sweeping emergency tariffs on manufactured goods imports, the American-owned automotive industry will soon disappear, and along with it much of the rest of America's core manufacturing. The problem for Detroit is that today's job cuts and plant closings are simply band-aids on hemorrhaging wounds. As financing dries up, development of new products and technologies will become...