The analysis in Chapter 8 shows that while the hegemon may indeed be challenged, and that trade often provides a critical vector for the challenger, it is not inevitable that the rival overthrows the leader. In the 1980s Japan posed just as great an economic challenge to the United States as China does now, albeit one that was only indirectly related to security concerns. This chapter explores the rise and fall of that challenge by focusing on bilateral competition in the automotive sector. It stresses how the economic transition in the United States produced an important shift in objectives, leading one president to grant import protection (Reagan in 1981) and another to reject it (Obama in 2009). That change illustrates a broader process by which the clashing interests of the hegemon and the challenger can give way to greater cooperation.