US Free Trade Direct with Thailand -- Isuzu is there
aka The chicken tax is falling country by country.
Summerized from Automotive Weekly
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The American International Automobile Dealers Association represents car dealers who sell import brands in America, and they're a strong backer of the Bush administration and its free trade strategy. AIADA was invited to tag along by the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, which is hammering out a free trade agreement with Thailand this month.

In the USA, the group has lobbied for decades to repeal the U.S. government's 25 percent tariff on imported pickups. (Which includes most SUV styles) The tariff is known as the Chicken Tax because 40 years ago the Johnson administration imposed it as retribution for a German tax on imported frozen poultry from U.S. producers.

Volkswagen was the major importer to the United States back then, and the Chicken Tax, which was aimed at the German automaker, was one of the main reasons VW dealers banded together and formed AIADA. Avoiding the Chicken Tax is one of the reasons that automakers based overseas produce pickups in North America.

A free trade agreement with Thailand could kill or cut the Chicken Tax on pickups built in that Asian country and possibly open a stream of low-cost pickups flowing to U.S. dealerships.

Mazda -- and Ford -- dealers could be quick beneficiaries because AutoAlliance has a factory in Rayong Province, Thailand, that already builds Mazda pickups for Asian markets. Toyota, Nissan and Isuzu also build pickups there.

Having representatives there when the deal is done would be a political coup for AIADA's leadership, which made a free trade agreement with Thailand one of its top lobbying goals last year.