Bloomberg has a good overview of the issues here. One part that struck me was the following:
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said her government will decide on an aid request from GM's Opel unit by Christmas. Opel asked for ``somewhat more than'' 1 billion euros in credit guarantees, said Carl-Peter Forster, GM's Europe chief. The state government in Hesse, where Opel employs 15,000 people, agreed to give the company and regional parts suppliers loan guarantees of as much as 500 million euros.
So it appears that Germany may give subsidies to GM's European subsidiary. By contrast, I have not heard any suggestion that U.S. bailout money would go to the U.S. operations of foreign car-makers. Is the fact that these foreign car-makers don't need a bailout sufficient to make the situations un-"like" and thus justify different treatment? (Not in a GATT Article III sense, just speaking generally).
