ABSTRACT
In Smyrna, Tennesee, a small town nestled in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, 240,000 cars and trucks a year roll off the assembly line at the Nissan Motor Manufacturing Corporation. The plant is the fourth largest Japanese-owned manufacturing facility in the United States, employing over 3,000 worlcers and revitalizing a rural and underdeveloped area It is also a symbol of the growing impact of Japan's enormous wave of direct investment in the United States. Japanese-owned auto plants have sprung up in Flat Rock, Michigan; Georgetown, Kentucky; and Marysville, Ohio, the site of Honda America
The trend is the same in other industries and communities as Japanese corporations respond to the high yen and the threat of protectionism with a flood of direct investment. According to the Department of Commerce figures, Japanese direct investment in the United States totaled $69.7 billion at the end of 1989. At the same time, Japanese corporate investors held a controlling interest in almost 1,000 manufacturing or assembly operations with an estimated employment base of over 400,000. Over forty American states have offices in Tokyo hoping to capture their share of the Japanese investment boom.1
