Washington – President Bush told U.S. auto industry leaders on Tuesday he recognized they had “tough choices” to make their companies competitive in a difficult global environment and promised a continuing dialogue between government and industry.
Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and other administration officials met in the Oval Office for just over an hour with top executives of Ford, General Motors and DaimlerChrysler AG’s Chrysler Group.
The automakers later told reporters they’d had a good meeting.
“The president clearly understands the importance of the business to the United States and the global economy,” said Ford Motor Co. chief executive Alan Mulally.
The auto executives said they pressed their concerns about health care and trade issues, while making clear that the troubled industry does not want a federal bailout.
“We found a lot in common,” said Bush, who met with the leaders just hours before he was to leave on a trip to Asia and a meeting in Vietnam with Asia-Pacific economic partners. The message he will give those partners, Bush said, is “just treat us like we treat you. … Our markets are open for your products and we expect your markets to be open for ours, including our automobiles.”
The automakers made the case that Japan’s weakened yen makes imported goods from Japan cheaper and enhances profits Japanese automakers make in the U.S.
On exchange rate policy, GM chairman and CEO Richard Wagoner said they discussed the automakers’ “strong conviction that the Japanese yen is systematically undervalued, which helps them to maintain significant trade balance surpluses in our industry.”
“I can’t honestly say it appears the president 100 percent saw it that way, but we had a good dialogue,” Wagoner said.
