Again, these light trucks aren't even built in Japan or EU and haven't been for a long time so I am not sure what that article as to do with what we are talking about.
Also, after doing some reading I think I figured out why light trucks were a part of the chicken tax. VW vans and beetle were very popular and the UAW wanted to stop this. At the time, the tariff was only imposed on vehicles built in Germany and France. Many of the US beetles were built in their Brazilian factory they opened in 1957 so the tariff would not apply to them especially when they could just shift all US production to Brazil.
The van , however, was still being produced in Germany so a tariff would apply to these vehicles. Vans were considered light trucks at the time by US classification so that is probably why only light trucks were apart of the chicken tax. This also hurt Ford when they tried to import their small Transit van from Spain and Turkey in the early 2000's. They got around it by shipping them as passenger vans and then took out the rear seats and covered up the rear glass once they got to the US making them a cargo van.
