There kind of is. Fuel efficiency requirements are stricter for smaller vehicles, creating a perverse incentive to increase size. Here's a 2011 paper that predicted exactly what would happen: https://news.umich.edu/cafe-standards-create-profit-incentiv...
But that is just one part of the puzzle.
The other is of course just normal marketing, advertising, etc. convincing people that they do lots of things outdoors that they don't actually do. Ford, GM, Toyota, Dodge, etc. are not the only ones guilty of this of course as Patagonia, REI, Apple (Ultra watch), and other companies that tout the Great American Outdoors have suckered us (me included) into these outdoor lifestyle brands as well. They all make fine products, of course, but people who tend to want trucks want them because of what they think they enable.
> but people who tend to want trucks want them because of what they think they enable
Those two of statements, sandwiching a paragraph, are completely contradictory.
If the marketing works (and I would claim it does) then people who want FOO want it because of marketing, not because of actual real need fulfillment.
Bernays told us that propaganda/PR/marketing was about selling feelings, not facts. And he demonstrated to us all how well it worked in various domains. The auto industry has been selling more "freedom" than cars and trucks for longer than I have been alive.
I am also quite confused about your follow up comment as well since I haven’t written anything to the contrary here in my previous post.
> The Chicken Tax is a 25 percent tariff on light trucks ... imposed in 1964 by the United States under President Lyndon B. Johnson in response to tariffs placed by France and West Germany on importation of U.S. chicken.
> ... since 1964 this form of protectionism has remained in place to give US domestic automakers an advantage over imported competitors.
Source? At least according to this source[1], a car with footprint similar to a Honda Fit only needs to hit 51 mpg this year, which it currently meets[2][3]. There are certainly cars that are even smaller than a Honda Fit, and maybe those do need to hit 90mpg, but the existence of cars like the Honda Fit proves that you can have CAFE compliant cars that aren't "beasts".
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_average_fuel_economy...
[2] https://hondanews.eu/eu/fi/cars/media/pressreleases/1523/hon...
[3] https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=+4.5+L%2F100km+to+mpg