Chicken Tax

With the details of the Trans-Pacific Partnership unveiled, we're now seeing the potential impact the free-trade deal would have on the auto industry.

Coming trade deals in the Pacific and in the EU could finally put an end to the Chicken Tax that exerts a 25-percent import tariff on foreign pickup trucks. Although, it might be a while before we see a bevy of new models on US streets.

Quiz America's auto enthusiasts about the vehicles they most want to see in the US market, and for every one that doesn't respond with a French hot hatchback or some diesel-powered offering, there'd be at least three that ask for some small, imported pickup truck. That won't happen, though, and we have the Chicken Tax to thank.

The Subaru Brat is the automotive equivalent of a teenager with a mullet: weird, a little reckless but brimming with enough self-confidence to make it cool.

If the 50-year-old Chicken Tax were repealed, there would undoubtedly be an influx of foreign-made light trucks and vans available in the US. In addition to imported midsize trucks like the global Ford Ranger and Mitsubishi Triton, this would also leave the door open for Volkswagen<

Ford is in a bit of a pickle for importing and selling Turkey-built Transit Connect cargo vans as passenger vehicles in the US, then converting them to commercial-vehicle specification stateside in an effort to bypass a 25-percent tax imposed on vehicles imported for commercial use. Automakers are required to pay a 2.5-percent tax on imported passenger vehicles.

Mahindra Pik-Up – Click above for high-res image gallery

According to a report from Automotive News, Mitsubishi's North American CEO Shin Kurihara would like to bring over the Japanese automaker's funky little Delica van (right) and Triton pickup (above), believing that the two work-ready models may fill a desirable niche here in the States. So, why not wave a magic wand and make that happen? In a word: Chickens.

Should a tax on foreign-made pickup trucks that was first instituted way back in 1963 as a retaliation for a European tax on U.S.-bred chickens affect sales of modern and fuel efficient pickups from India in the United States? That's the question that Global Vehicles, hopeful U.S. importers of India's Mahindra pickups, is currently asking policymakers in Washington. The answer they are hoping for would rid the United States of the so-called ch