According to Forbes magazine, nine percent of the U.S. gross domestic product is generated by the automobile industry, impacting the livelihoods of millions of Americans. But those livelihoods aren’t solely dependent on ailing GM and Ford; several Asian and European automakers have invested heavily within U.S. borders. Known as “transplants,” these overseas automakers directly or indirectly employ hundreds of thousands of people in the United States. From design studios and proving grounds to research and development facilities and assembly plants, transplants are investing billions of dollars into the U.S. economy to build state-of-the-art automobiles, taking up the slack where GM and Ford have left off.

Still, the sales of imported vehicles built outside of our borders continue to impact our collective bottom lines. Overall, the U.S. market that has seen a five-year decline of half a million units sold, yet import sales have risen here by about 550,000 – mainly in trucks. The result is that homegrown U.S. vehicle production has dwindled by more than one million units since 1999, leaving small American companies, small American towns, and hard working Americans unemployed.

Fortunately, as assembly plants have closed in northern regions of the U.S., transplants have been opening huge, state-of-the-art facilities in the Deep South. Three are open now, and a fourth ribbon-cutting ceremony for a Toyota Tundra truck-building factory in San Antonio, Texas, is slated for 2006.

But we, as Americans, cannot expect foreign companies to ensure the health of our economy. Ultimately, the responsibility to make sure America, and Americans, remain economically viable rests in our hands. We must buy American.