AUTOS: Driving Against The Traffic

Driving Against The Traffic

When auto-carrying freighters from Japan finish unloading their cargo in U.S. ports, they typically steam back across the Pacific with empty holds or perhaps a load of live beef cattle. Reason: while Japan exported 2.2 million autos to America last year, the U.S. shipped a mere 4,006 autos in the other direction. That whopping imbalance showed a small sign of easing last week when Honda became the first Japanese automaker to send some of its U.S.-made autos back home for sale. The carmaker marked the occasion on a dock in Portland, Ore., where Republican Senator Bob Packwood and Honda's U.S. chief,...

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