Comment by terminalshort

In a way, yes, but there are some differences. The US market was never as heavily restricted as the Chinese market, with foreign competitors allowed to open up factories in the US to avoid tariffs. You can do that now in China, but until pretty recently you had to split ownership with a Chinese company to enter that market. Also US car brands have always had a significant export market (vs China only in the last few years), so our tariffs have always been more about jobs than industry development (though that makes no difference to the economic effect of the tariffs on consumers). Which is why foreign competitors were always free to avoid them so long as they employed Americans at the factory.