Toyota (NYSE:TM) built a great deal of its US business, especially in the 1970s and 1980s, on assembling cars inexpensively in Japan and shipping them to the US. Then the world's largest vehicle maker built plants in the US to satisfy rising demand for its products and to offset resentment that it was only an importer with no interest in employing American workers.

Toyota may now regret its decision to build big manufacturing facilities on US soil. Many of the new facilities were set up to make SUVs and pick-ups for a market that moved to these vehicles in the 1990s and the current decade. High gas prices have killed that business over the last year or so.

Toyota may have come up with a good but ironic solution. It may ship SUVs and pick-ups from its US plant to countries where there is still some demand for the vehicles. The car company, once a leading importer to the American market, is now moving into the export business.

According to The Wall Street Journal, "The auto maker, which produces the Tundra pickup and Sequoia SUV, is looking at other markets around the world, although no decision has been made," It shows how management moves that looked good in one decade can sour in the next.

Douglas A. McInyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.