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- <text id=92TT0356>
- <title>
- Feb. 17, 1992: Business Notes:Trade
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1992
- Feb. 17, 1992 Vanishing Ozone
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- BUSINESS, Page 59
- Business Notes
- TRADE
- Made in The U.S.A.
- </hdr><body>
- <p> Surrounded by all the recent flag-waving "Buy American" sales
- promotions, Japanese automaker Mazda might be experiencing
- something of an identity crisis. At the Chicago Auto Show this
- week, Mazda's U.S. subsidiary introduced a redesigned midsize
- 626 sedan.
- </p>
- <p> But it wasn't the 626's smart looks that drew attention so
- much as it was the new automobile's parenthood. The 626 may
- well become the first U.S. import brand to qualify under
- EnvironmenProtection Agency standards as an "American" product.
- Not only will U.S. workers at Mazda's Flat Rock, Mich., plant
- assemble the automobile, but 75% of its total content will be
- American-made.
- </p>
- <p> Mazda's marketing managers say they have no plans to
- exploit the 626's new citizenship status. Still, being a
- naturalized American with Japanese parents can have its
- complications. After the recent ridicule of U.S. workers by
- Japanese politicians, Mazda's Flat Rock president, Masahiro
- Uchida, sent around a note of apology to his American workers.
- "It was embarrassing," he said last week. "It was not helpful
- at all."
- </p>
-
- </body></article>
- </text>
-
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