EU has a total lack of vision when it comes to in-region manufacturing. Imagine if the Union decided that 50% of all goods would have to be made in the Union within 20 years...
The reason why Italian and German small businesses are so innovative is because the global market is hyper-competitive.
Moreover, Detroit cars didn’t get worse but rather stagnated in comparison with Toyota/Deming’s continuous improvement model.
To be fair, that ‘81 VW camper in our driveway doesn’t fair much better. I’d rather rely on an ‘80s Chevy Citation to get me home than that piece of parts-bin shit. Part of the problem for a lot manufacturers were 70s-era emissions controls, which is a small part of why a 4000 lb. vehicle has an engine that put out 68bhp.
The well 20-something yuppies who got dragged around in their parent's well cared for 90s Japanese cars and look back fondly on those days.
The edge between manufacturers is very, very, small. 20+yr and 3+ owners later how a vehicle is treated will completely dominate who made it when it comes to how reliable it is going forward. 90s domestics definitely ignored the sedan and compact market a little, after all, minivans then SUVs were where they money was. They didn't innovate. But they gave their car platforms the same sets of tech and systems that the flagship SUVs got so they're no less reliable. The "hurr durr domestics are unreliable" tropes that HN loves comes from the fact that they're cheap (compare MSRPs of the day if you don't believe me). So people bought them with the intention of treating them as disposable. So then they don't hold their value, so then they get sold to people who can't afford to do maintenance. And the cycle continues.
I think a similar story happened to a lot of American families, and the stereotype grew.
And there would obviously be retaliation. Europe makes a lot of the world's things-for-making-things (like this casting system, say). The market for that sort of thing would shrink due to retaliatory protectionism, and the quality would get worse due to in-Europe protectionism.
In general, closed-off markets tend to produce poor quality consumer and industrial goods, priced too high.
If you then force (or "heavily encourage" with tariffs etc) other companies to "buy local", you're hurting those other companies by having them buy the product that's unable to compete.
If you intend to cite negative second and third order effects as a counterargument - have you considered whether or not any negative second and third order effects might be applicable to yours?
The largest market for European companies is Europe itself.
That's what the latter stages of "Made in America" labelling consisted of.