Canadian Unions help prove economic ignorance and protectionism are something America doesn’t hold the copyright on. Two of Canada’s largest unions are urging the federal government to adopt a Buy Canadian policy similar to the proposal that has been criticized in the United States. At a joint press conference on Tuesday morning, the Canadian Auto Workers and the United Steelworkers said Ottawa should adopt a procurement policy that ensures the majority of public funds are spent on goods and services made in Canada. There has been no formal comment on …
It’s hard to get a feel on where the job-killing, protectionist ”Buy American” provisions now stand after President Obama’s series of media interviews yesterday where he believed the measured needed to be removed because of the potential of ‘going to trigger a trade war.’ This morning, the Atlantic’s Marc Ambinder reported such a stance might not be the case. A lot of sudden friction among allies of Barack Obama last night when the president told ABC’s Charlie Gibson that the so-called Buy American provisions ought to be cut out of the stimulus bill. Democratic …
With the protectionist stances coming from the Obama Administration via the Trillion Dollar Debt Plan’s “Buy American” provisions; you might forget the United States still has a series of pending trade agreements with Columbia and South Korea which need Congressional approval. Just yesterday, President Obama agreed with South Korea’s Lee Myung-bak to do all he could to get both nations’ legislative bodies to approve the trade agreement. South Korean President Lee Myung-bak and U.S. President Barack Obama agreed on Tuesday to fight against trade protectionism, as legislatures in both countries prepare to battle over a bilateral free trade deal. South …
Jay Van Andel Senior Trade Policy Analyst at Heritage Daniella Markheim comments on why the recently discovered “Buy American” provisions in the ‘stimulus’ bill will only hurt the American economy in the long run. Advocates of Buy American rules claim that limiting competition for U.S. government contracts to domestic firms will protect U.S. jobs and help prop up firms in troubled industries. Regrettably, the cost of such protectionism will be inflicted on the American public, who will fail to get the best value for their hard-earned taxpayer dollars; the U.S. workers who lose their jobs …
As states begin to line up for their portion of the Pelosi-Reid-Obama debt plan, many of them aren’t even waiting for the legislation to be passed to prepare the ways they can spend your tax dollars. In Wisconsin, Gov. James E. Doyle went as far as creating an “Office of Recovery and Reinvestment” to “start laying the groundwork for quickly moving the federal stimulus money out the door, to maintain jobs, to create new jobs and to invest in economic growth in the state.” America’s Dairyland turned to livestock and created its …
