SOUTHFIELD, Mich. — Toyota Motor Corp. passed Ford Motor Co. in July to become the no. 2 automaker in America for the first time as domestic automakers’ sales declined more than 20% and rising fuel prices curbed demand for light trucks.

Toyota sold 241,826 vehicles in the month, a 12% increase, while Ford dropped 34% to 241,399. In April, Toyota overtook DaimlerChrysler AG to rank No. 3 in American sales and now leads the German automaker after seven months. Sales of General Motors Corp., the world’s No. 1 automaker, dropped 23% in July.

“The results finally reflect the reality that Toyota is a superlative auto manufacturer and Ford is struggling,” a fixed-income analyst at Morgan Keegan & Co. in Memphis, Pete Hastings, said.

Toyota’s ascendancy comes as Detroit-based GM and Ford, of Dearborn, Michigan, are cutting a combined 60,000 American union jobs and closing 26 locations to end North American losses. DaimlerChrysler’s Chrysler unit last month revived employee discounts for all buyers to help end four straight months of American sales declines.

Toyota also gained on GM as the world’s largest automaker in the first half of this year by cutting GM’s lead in half. The Toyota City-based automaker passed Ford, whose founder invented the modern assembly line to put America on wheels almost a century ago, to become no. 2 in global sales in 2003.

Honda, the no. 2 Japanese automaker in the U.S. behind Toyota, gained 6% in July. Nissan Motor Co. dropped 20%, for its ninth decline in 10 months.

GM’s light vehicle sales, excluding medium-duty trucks, fell 22% to 406,298. Light truck sales declined 31%, and passenger car sales dropped 4.2%. Sales of the Chevrolet TrailBlazer, GM’s best-selling sport-utility vehicle, plunged 52%, and the Chevy Silverado pickup fell 31%.

Ford’s sales dropped to 241,339 for the month, including a 44% decline in trucks, the company said.

Sales of F-Series pickup trucks fell 46% to 68,982. In July 2005, with the employee-pricing offers, Ford sold 126,905 F-Series pickups, the most for a vehicle in any month since the company’s Model T in the 1920s. The company’s mid-size and large sport-utility vehicles also continued their slide.

DaimlerChrysler sales fell 34% to 171,940. Sales of the Chrysler, Jeep and Dodge brands dropped to 150,349 from 240,146 a year earlier. Mercedes cars and truck sales rose 3.8% to 21,591.

“The biggest driver in the decline this year is the historically high comparison to last year,” an analyst with Global Insight Inc. in Lexington, Mass., Rebecca Lindland, said. In July 2005, Ford and Chrysler followed GM by offering employee discounts to all buyers, triggering the second–strongest month of sales in American history.

The decline in light truck sales hurts Ford, GM, and Chrysler disproportionately because they rely more on those models for sales and they are among the automakers’ most profitable.

Average American gasoline prices finished July at $3.01 a gallon, marking a 32% increase in the past 12 months, according to AAA data.

In July 2005, Ford had its first monthly market share gain in more than two years when its offer of employee discounts sparked a 29% increase in sales.

“What goes around, comes around,” Ford sales analyst George Pipas said.

Chrysler, of Auburn Hills, Mich., was the only American automaker to bring back employee pricing in July. It also added rebates and interest-rate promotions. The automaker said yesterday it will continue the program for another month.