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The heads of Chrysler, Ford and GM have met with president Bush to discuss America ’s domestic auto industry. The focus of the meeting was manufacturing competitiveness, resulting from energy security, health care, trade imbalance with Japan and the rising cost of raw materials.

The big three meet with the big chief

Chrysler’s Tom LaSorda, Ford’s Alan Mulally and GM’s Rick Wagoner told the president that they supported moves toward lessening America ’s dependence on imported oil – in so doing, half of their annual production should be flex-fuel bioethanol E85 or biodiesel compatible by 2012. They asked in return for incentives for the production and distribution of biofuels. The three CEOs re-iterated their support for the “25 by ‘25” initiative, whereby one quarter of US energy requirements be met from renewable sources by 2025.

Government subsidised health care overseas was cited as one factor that placed US companies at a “serious competitive disadvantage” and they told the president that “we believe that government can play a leading role to improve health care and make it affordable and available for all.”

The scale of automotive imbalance with Japan – imports will reach 2.3 million units – and what they claim is an artificially weak yen is another area that the big three are very concerned about. Trading at its lowest level for 20 years, they said it “provides Japanese automakers a $3000-$9000 per vehicle subsidy for auto exports and Japanese-made parts that go into vehicles made by Japanese companies in the US.”

They also called for an end to the protection of the domestic steel industry and asked that the administration “recognise that the continued protection of steel from competition is severely harming US manufacturing and is no longer needed.”