The acquisition would constitute Miller's introduction to the import market, a small but influential industry niche.

They have eliminated most of the import market.

It has more than 3 percent of the Japanese import market in the United States, up from 2.2 percent last year.

"Finally, the import market is big enough that they want a piece of it."

"The higher the dollar, the less likely it is the Japanese and the Europeans have to walk away from an import market," he said.

For the first six months of this year, Italy's share of the American import market was just 2.3 percent, down from 2.6 percent in 1990.

"Asia, which already represents a trillion-dollar-a-year import market, will account for nearly half the world's economic growth over the next decade."

At the same time, the main import markets continued to decline.

One way to do this is to deny them access to the world's biggest import market and best selection of exports.

And we did our research in California, the strongest import market in the country.