This is not how economists think. They see the US, go "Coal mining, check. Iron mining, check, so you can make steel inside US. More than enough people, check. Oil, check. As well as 1000 other things, and mostly, the checks are there", and conclude the US could produce cheap cars. So if it makes sense or it becomes urgent enough, it will happen. Nothing is really preventing the US from doing everything itself, and doing that will improve the balance of trade (while making Americans much poorer).

In other words, the problem of "The normal USA citizen can't afford a car anymore" can be understood in a different way. That can be fixed, by paying people less (yes, less, really, think about it)

The US can drop it's imports and do essentially everything itself.

Right now people can't afford a car because the US is so equal, meaning they can't compete with labor in India or ... But you could "fix" that, by creating more inequality in the US (do what we effectively do now, worldwide, but within the US. Forbid people immigrating from California to New York. Move all banks to New York, build factories in California. Pay people in California 20% what they make in New York for the same job), and production will move back to the US.

And if that offends you, please understand that's exactly what we're doing now. Just replace California and New York with India or China and New York with, well New York, or Washington, and that's exactly the system we have. That's the system the EU is trying to create in the EU.

Doesn't work that way for exports (EU, or China, or to a lesser extent, India). The EU is an export block that's rich getting out competed by export blocks that are poor ... Now THAT is a difficult problem to solve. Not that EU politicians are even trying.

The US is not doing better because US politicians are better than EU ones. They just have a much easier problem to solve. And, of course, both US and EU politicians are failing, but the consequences are much bigger in the EU.

For example, the EU is in fact making it harder to immigrate WITHIN the block, despite "free movement", and is creating massive differences in pay for the same work, which is apparently what socialism stands for:

Typical after-tax pay for supermarket cashier:

Netherlands: 2550 euro (after tax), for 36 hours of work ~ 15 euro/hour

Greece: 1050 euro (after tax), for 40 hours of work ~ 6 euro/hour

Oh and that's not where it ends. You get way more social protection and medical in the Netherlands ... for paying less in tax. The EU is purposefully creating inequality to solve the problem of rich Dutch people not getting richer fast enough. It's only within the same country that there is less inequality in the EU. And, of course, the EU has been making it worse, not better, for about 18 years now. They're not about to stop. The US hasn't even decently started doing this yet.