This post may be venturing off into “rant” territory, which is largely uncharted water for me. But an article in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal about the negative impacts that the Buy American Clause is having on some of the very businesses it’s supposed to help shows the fallacy of drafting government policy-by-marketing-slogan.
The Journal tells the [...]

[Read more →]

President Obama defended the US stimulus package’s ‘Buy American Clause’ yesterday at the Three Amigos Summit in Mexico. The President stressed the limited reach of the clause, the possibility for states and provinces to circumvent the provisions in some cases, and the administration’s interpretation that the policy is legal under WTO rules:

Frankly, it struck me [...]

[Read more →]

As we’ve discussed before, the recently enacted ‘Buy American’ clause was expected to have global ramifications if the proposed measures to supply public sector stimulus projects using domestically produced steel came to fruition. As we expected, the Buy American clause has been modified as the US was pounded by pushback from other nations. But, even [...]

[Read more →]

As The Atlantic reported earlier this month, the latest import to nearly fall victim to a trade war was Roquefort cheese. In January, the Bush administration “imposed a 300 percent import tax on France’s famous Roquefort cheese, among other luxury food imports from Europe.” This move was a tit-for-tat retaliation for the EU’s ban on [...]

[Read more →]

As the G-20 Summit officially kicks off today under a typical layer of London fog (comprised of economic storm clouds and tear gas), the topic of protectionist policies are certain to dominate trade discussions. Although I suspect many of the assembled leaders are truly “free traders” caught up in populist political pressure to protect jobs [...]

[Read more →]