As I said I do not believe in protectionism. I think that a very fair bilateral deal would be for the nations on both sides of the Pacific to agree that they can each sell an equal number of units in their trading partner's country. Right now virtually zero American cars can be sold in Japan primarily due to none trade barriers, so it looks like there would be a few less Hondas coming in here until they reduce those barriers. This would not effect Japanese cars being produced here.
Over the past decade, the ratio has been a few million to virtually zip. There does seem to be some room here for improvement, I would say. This isn't protectionism, this is TWO WAY TRADE. Let's face it, the Japanese have been very good at exploiting the North American car market while allowing few, if any, American cars to enter Japan. I once heard that the most powerful lobby group in Washington was the Japanese car producers. They probably learned that more than ball joints have to be greased.
Wayne