Dr. Mike Walden, North Carolina Cooperative Extension economist in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at N.C. State University, responds:

"I definitely think so because there's always going to be a benefit to making a vehicle - a car or truck - in the country where you're going to sell it, simply because of the cost of moving those very bulky commodities. So, yes, we will have vehicle manufacturing plants here in the U.S. Now, the question is, will they be American companies? Will they be foreign companies? And where will they be located? I think what we can see is a trend away from American companies, and actually a trend away from the big auto manufacturing plants in the Midwest - Michigan, Ohio and Indiana, where the traditional American auto industry was centered. And really what we have right now is two auto industries in the U.S. We have the Detroit-based - Midwest-based - and then we have the southern-based. The southern-based auto industry has grown tremendously in the last 20 years. It's primarily an industry that's using foreign ownership, so there are foreign factories here. This is the part, I think, of the U.S. auto industry that will grow. It will grow here in the South, and it will primarily be from foreign-owned companies."