"Buy America" to come under attack in Rome!

[Joanne98]

ROME (Reuters) - G7 finance ministers headed to Rome to discuss the global economic crisis on Friday with a warning from Germany that the world could be plunged back into the dark days of the 1930s if governments resorted to protectionism.

The G7 industrialized economic powers, all in recession, are under pressure to prove they can work together to stop the rot rather than engaging in a battle of "beggar-thy-neighbor," and Berlin made it clear the latter was an increasingly real risk.

"We will have to do everything to ensure history does not repeat itself," German Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck told parliament a few hours ahead of the Rome meeting.

"Right now, I think Germany has a huge interest in ensuring, at international meetings, that the world does not make the same mistakes it made in the 1930s."

He cited the "buy American" clause in an economic stimulus package the U.S. Congress is due to vote on just as the finance ministers of the G7 powers -- the United States, Japan, Germany, Britain, France, Italy and Canada -- meet over dinner in Rome.

http://www.reuters.com/article/ousiv/idUSTRE51C2FG20090213

If this "protectionism" hysteria isn't slapped down pretty soon we'll be stimulating everyone else's economy but ours.