Toyota makes friends, readies for backlash

“After 50 years of being in the country, it’s also part of becoming a citizen,” Press said. “This is a natural flow for our profits to stay in the United States — stay in North America and be reinvested here.”

But some members of Congress and advocacy groups question if Toyota is unfairly benefiting at the expense of U.S. automakers, who face large health care and retiree costs that they say are exacerbated by Japan’s currency practices. The weak yen puts domestics at a price disadvantage of several thousand dollars per vehicle, they argue.

In a letter last month to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, four House Democrats said the weakened yen had allowed Japanese automakers to increase their exports to the United States by more than 30 percent in 2006.

“A yen that’s 20 percent undervalued is giving an incentive to gush exports out of Japan and flood this market,” said Stephen Collins, president of the Automotive Trade Policy Council, which represents Detroit automakers.

Rep. Sander Levin, D-Mich., who leads the trade panel of the House Ways and Means Committee, plans to hold hearings on the undervalued yen and said he was considering legislation to address the inequities.

“The auto industry can’t set trade policy,” Levin said. “Government needs to be a partner and its been a silent partner.”

The Bush administration has been cool to a protectionist approach, despite a high-profile — and delayed — meeting at the White House between Bush and the leaders of Detroit’s car makers that included currency on the agenda.

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, in a speech Thursday, said erecting barriers would hurt the economy and lead to “lost jobs and lost opportunity.” Administration officials, meanwhile, have stressed the importance of foreign investment as a way to spur economic development.

Toyota has bolstered its lobbying operation in recent years. The company spent more than $4 million last year on lobbying, Toyota officials said, compared to about $875,000 in 2000.

Josephine Cooper, Toyota’s group vice president for government and industry affairs, said the company hasn’t seen “an appetite for discriminatory actions against foreign-based automakers beyond some in the Michigan delegation. I think you can attribute that to the concern for their companies.”

Members of Congress who support domestic automakers concede they face major hurdles. Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., noted that “you can’t swing a dead cat in the parking lot (on Capitol Hill) without hitting a Toyota or Honda or a Mitsubishi. I don’t believe it’s a political problem.”

The Camry, after all, remains the nation’s top-selling passenger car. Rogers, who grew up in the rural outskirts of Detroit, said he remembered the days when “you did not consider buying a foreign car. Now I think the attitude of America has changed.”

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