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For Us, By Us

Unless your name is either Abe Vigoda or Betty White, there's scarcity of reasons for why you should remember the fact that chicken was considered a luxury delicacy before World War II. But, thanks to the establishment of intensive chicken farming in 1950's US, the average 'merican consumer of Gallus gallus domesticus instantly transformed from gourmet to gourmand after the war. Or, in the words of someone smarter than me, chicken finally became staple food.

Since Americans were the first to introduce industrialized chicken farming, they quickly became the world's number one exporter of poultry, thus also taking advantage of Europe's slower recovery from the war. Imports of inexpensive US chicken transformed Europe in two ways.

Firstly, it degraded the tasty meat from a delicacy to a common staple food in Europe as well. Secondly, chicken prices fell like a rock all over the Old Continent. I know this intro most probably fails to entice the average automotive fan in search of a car-related rant on autoevolution, but bear with me for a moment.

As a hint to the actual point of this story, let me just say that - although it might be hard to believe at first - it's deeply connected to the reason why some SUVs are called trucks in the United States, among other useless bits of car-related information.

Getting back to the story, a first consequence of the things stated above was an actual crisis in trade relations between the US and the Old Continent. A number of European countries had become rather angry at the fact that chicken imports from America were affecting Europe's agricultural self-sufficiency.

This, in turn, became an all-out war of nerves and declarations. West Germany accused the US of artificially fattening chicken with arsenic, while the Netherlands pointed their finger at the very low price of American poultry, saying it was actually below the cost of production. The French on the other hand went as far as banning US chicken because of concerns that hormones used in poultry growth could affect male virility.

As crazy as these statements might sound now, especially coming from a government, they were in fact based on real facts. On a side but related note, the majority of chicken currently sold in the United States are still fed Roxarsone, an arsenic-based additive that is used to promote growth, kill parasites and improve pigmentation of the meat. Yes, the cancerous, I'm-a-kill-you arsenic, but that's a totally different story.

Anyway, after the scandal escalated, Europe started imposing minimum import prices on all imported chicken, thus making the first move of what was to become known as... drum rolls... "The Chicken War". Naturally, this resulted in America retaliating with their own weapons, and after almost two years of negotiations, the US imposed a 25 percent tax (which was almost 10 times the previous average US tariff) on potato starch, dextrin, brandy, and... light trucks.

Proclamation no. 3564 (aka "the Chicken Tax") birthed on December 4, 1963, and was seen by many as the beginning of the end for the technological advances of Detroit's Big Three. Indeed, ladies and gentlemen, according to an esteemed Harvard professor, the Chicken Tax is what slowly killed the American automobile over the last four decades.

How did it manage to do that, you ask? Well, let's just take a look at the ramifications of increasing the import tariff to 25% on light trucks. The first to "benefit" from the blow were Volkswagen, which almost immediately withdrew their Type 2-derived vans and light trucks from the US market. Since it was a general rule, other international car makers tried to circumvent it by discovering several more or less amusing loopholes over the years.

First, the Japanese found that they could export entire vehicles minus the truck bed, thus benefiting from a much lower, 4% tax. This way, "regular cars" were imported into the United States, only to become light trucks overnight with the addition of a cargo box or a truck bed. Not long after the Big Three lobbied and the US Government had closed this loophole, another one appeared.

The Subaru BRAT (not the ill-mannered annoying child, but the Bi-drive Recreational All-terrain Transporter) also managed to get a free pass by carrying two detachable rear-facing seats inside its rear cargo bed. This way, it could be imported without paying the Chicken Tax by being classified as a "two-door SUV" and not a light truck.

In 1989, the US Customs changed vehicle classifications in order to make these imports illegal, by relegating two-door SUVs to light truck status. Which is also why most SUVs in the United States are now called "trucks"...

Others have gone to all kinds of more or less extreme measures. For example, when ex-DaimlerChrysler used to import the Sprinter van into the US, the vehicles were actually partially assembled in Germany and then reassembled in South Carolina, after being imported without the 25% tax.

Ford currently does something even stranger with its Turkey-assembled Transit Connect models. It imports the MPV passenger version of the car from Europe to the US, thus exempting it from the light truck status. Following a procedure that takes no more than five minutes in a Baltimore warehouse, the rear seats and seatbelts are removed, while the rear windows are replaced with metal panels, effectively transforming the car into an all-out cargo van (which would fall under the hard-taxed light truck category). In the mean time, all Japanese car manufacturers have built plants on American soil for almost all cars that they sell on this market.

Now, why did I mention that the Chicken Tax slowly killed the US car industry over the years? Well, according to the aforementioned Harvard professor the answer is rather simple, actually. By forcing the disappearance of imported light trucks of their market, the Detroit Big Three could focus on their own fullsize trucks, which bring much higher profits than regular cars thanks to their low R&D and manufacturing costs. This is also why some of the best sold vehicles in America over the last decades have been domestic trucks. Go figure!

PS: If the loophole examples are supposed to teach us something it is of course the fact that free market is desperately trying to make its way even in countries that do not fully agree with its concept, for either true or untrue reasons.
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About the author: Alex Oagana
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Alex handled his first real steering wheel at the age of five (on a field) and started practicing "Scandinavian Flicks" at 14 (on non-public gravel roads). Following his time at the University of Journalism, he landed his first real job at the local franchise of Top Gear magazine a few years before Mircea (Panait). Not long after, Alex entered the New Media realm with the autoevolution.com project.
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