is there any desagreement beteweenUSA ANDITALY

l am not certain why some of them do not sell in the USA, but l do know that Alfa Romeo will be coming back to the USA in 2009. There is a whole article about it here: http://edmunds.com/insideline/do/News/articleId=116107

l do not know about the Fiat or Lancia brand names, but cars will be being sold in the USA under the Alfa Romeo name.

fiat left the U.S. over smog and safety rules

In many countries they often have taxation rules regarding imports.
Cars that r locally made have extremely low taxes , cars that have some local content (mitsubishi , toyota etc) medium taxes , & cars with zero local content very high taxes.
They do this (supposedly) to protect the local car industries by making imports totally out of the competitive market.

l remember in Australia they have a race called 'Bathurst' , its an endurance race for sedans.

In the 1970 is the class that u raced in was dependent upon the price of the car in the show room.

Because of these taxes , it meant that a Fiat 125 special , a normal 4 cylinder car with a 1600 cc engine from Italy was in the same class as a top of the range Ford 5.8 liter V8 powered limited production sports sedan car.

What car won that class ,, l do not need to tell u that.

But that should explain why there r so few full import European cars.
Not because they r bad , not because the do not pass emissions , but because after government taxes they just r not a viable proposition for any dealer to sell.

Thats why there r so few imports.

USA and Italy are pawns in this game.
The world is major corporations are the players.
You're still free to buy a Ferrari, etc

The reason Fiat pulled it is cars (except Ferrari,Maserati) out of the US market in 1982 was because of the ridiculous US federal highway safety & EPA regulations.That,and poor sales due to bad dealership support & service to their customers.Alfa Romeo IS supposed to return to US market in 2010 (last time l checked), but Fiat has changed the date numerous times over the last couple of years.There is also some discussion about the new Fiat 500( which is very popular in Europe)being imported to the US in limited numbers,but do not hold ur breath.Lancia has no plans to return that l am aware of ,but we can keep dreaming.

Those 3 cars are made by the same conglomerate. The FIAT group tried to sell cars in America but they lost money so they decided to give up. There is not a political pronblem. Fiat group sells Ferraris and Maseratis here. Reasons for not buying them were lack of reliability , and a bad dealer network.

They do not sell new ones in America. There used to be shops called imported car dealers here, but they had to compete with car dealers who had a franchise to sell a major brand of American, Japanese, Korean, Swedish or German car. The imported car dealers could sell a few of these Italian cars, as well as some French & British cars, but not enough to earn much of a profit, so they went bankrupt or got a franchise to sell a make of car that people wanted to buy. l suppose the disagreement was, that in order to meet U.S. regulations for safety & emissions control, those Italian makers had to make a special version of their car to sell it in the U.S. They were losing money on this project, so they just gave up. the only Italians they sell here r Ferrari, Lamborghini, & Maserati.,and they only sell a few of those to rich people who want a car that most people can not afford. a dealer can earn a profit on those, only because the mark-up is so high. l doubt that an Italian car can compete with a Korean car if price is a factor.
l do believe that the coachbuilders & engineers of Italy r capable of coming up with an Alfa-Romeo Americans will want, but that would take some dedication. l suggest they Put 2 High performance DOHC 4 cylinder engines together to make a straight 8 that resembles the classic I-8 that powered the great Alfas of the 30s. The front part would drive the front wheels, the rear ,the rear wheels. so if a part breaks u can still drive the car. Hire Giugaro to design the body. This would make an Alfa, that a dealer could charge whatever price he wanted for. As for Fiat & Lancia, they're screwed. Perhaps Lancia could sue Mazda for copyright infringement, because, as Jasper mentioned, The rotor of their wankel rotary engine looks like Lancia is trademark. They could'nt get much money, but Mazda might settle by making a 4 rotor version, that would be sold to Lancia to power a new Lancia supercar. The wanko is modular enough to do this.
as for FIAT, well my Dad tells me that when FIAT was selling the FIAT Strada here in the 70s, their slogan was ''Strada, another Italian work of art'' The popular joke was ''Strada another Italian piece of ****''. Sorry l just do not think u can get an American to buy anything with FIAT on it.