I've always wondered why US cars are so expensive compared to the rest of the world. My home country of Malaysia has cars starting at $8000, this new EV is $11k

I've always wondered why US cars are so expensive compared to the rest of the world. My home country of Malaysia has cars starting at $8000, this new EV is $11k, but the cheapest new cars in the US start at $18k, basically double. Why is this the case? Why don't we have new $10k cars? Is it because of tariffs? Ford et al are politically powerful and managed to get vehicle tariffs? Union lobbying to make sure that you need to get American labour involved to make the cars, driving costs up? Regulatory capture to make sure that suppliers are US-based? Is there a good explanation? Edit: a quick search found that right across the border Mexico has new $8-10k cars, why can't we have that here in the US?