When they campaigned in the primaries, Democrats were often skeptical about free trade, and apparently the House bill that passed on the stimulus plan includes provisions such as "buy American steel." How damaging is this?
We're going to have to see what emerges from the Senate. This is one of those times where I'm grateful that we have a bicameral legislature, because there has been a real public outcry over the protectionism of the House bill, and let's hope that there are enough senators who can deal with some of these things. Now, to some degree this will cause a big problem, because we've signed treaties like the WTO [World Trade Organization] agreement, which actually allows countries to retaliate against us. Provisions like "Buy American" in these infrastructure projects --we'd have to look at the technicalities--are likely to systematically violate agreements that the United States has signed. The consequences of giving other countries the right to discriminate against American goods, or charge higher tarrifs on American imports, would amount to shooting ourselves in the foot. - Newsweek (Bernard Gwertzman, Council on Foreign Relations)
This is the problem when you try to rush things through. Nancy Pelosi and the US Congress rushed this bill through and have not looked at all the consequences. Well the Buy American part of it is causing headaches for Obama. He is seeing his support around the world dwindling quickly.
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