Obama stands firm on 'buy America' provision of Stimulus Package

[grantcart]

Somewhat different than speculation that the President was going to abandon the provision, the President made a strong defense of it:

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2009/08/10/obama-buy-american-provision-not-harming-trade-with-canada/#more-63884

GUADALAJARA, Mexico (CNN) — President Barack Obama said Monday that a "Buy American" provision in his economic stimulus plan had little effect so far on the multibillion-dollar trade partnership with Canada.

Obama told journalists at a summit with the leaders of Canada and Mexico that Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has raised the issue every time they have met.

Harper has complained the "Buy American" provision is protectionist and could harm trade relations between the closely linked North American economies.

"This in no way this has endangered the billions of dollars of trade taking place between our two countries," Obama said, standing beside Harper and Calderon at a final news conference.

Harper responded to the same question by saying the leaders had a good discussion on the issue, and their respective trade ministers also were talking about it.

[and-justice-for-all]

1. I think should make more of an effort to buy American made goods..

nothing wrong with that.

[Brundle_Fly]

8. let me know when you find some US goods.

thanks.

Love China.

[and-justice-for-all]

9. http://www.buyamerican.com/

[shaniqua6392]

2. I wish they would have done that with cash for clunkers.

I don't see anything wrong with a buy American clause. It is OUR tax dollars that are being spent.

[BobRossi]

3. Amen!

Just what were they thinking?

[BobRossi]

4. Hope he doesn't cave to this.

"General Motors Co. and Ford Motor Co. are asking President Barack Obama to exempt tires for new cars from proposed tariffs on Chinese imports, a request the United Steelworkers union president called offensive."

"Such duties would raise the costs of new cars and trucks by as much as $150, the automakers said in a filing, as a trade panel considered a union request for tariffs on $1.7 billion of Chinese tire imports.
Obama pledged in June not to send any protectionist signals to U.S. trading partners. His administration also has vowed to take a harder line on overseas trade barriers and beef up trade enforcement."

http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2009908080305

[grantcart]

5. Interesting - are tires still manufactured in the US?

Living in Singapore in 1980 the government increased the minimum wage by 300% in order to encourage tire manufacturers to leave - to go to Malaysia and Indonnesia. They wanted to bring in higher paying high tech industries and have the tire manufacturers out.

[cliffordu]

10. Is that the reason they threw you out??

That spare tire??

[grantcart]

11. I was not thrown out

I was escorted to the Malaysian border with a police escort.


But since you asked nicely I will tell you a true story.


Malaysian politics is rooted in a lot of internal battles in the ethnic Malaysian party (which links up with a Chinese and Indian party to form a coalition). Its all tied to patronage and families have Soprano type ties to all of the different agencies.

Well for some reason or another the Customs department fell out of favor with Prime Minister Mahathir. In order to show their muscle the customs officials started examining every item in every car coming in from Singapore to Malaysia. This careful examination apple by apple caused the wait into Malaysia to stretch more than 8 hours in the first day.

Malaysia has a parallel "moral police" that enforce a strict moral law based on Muslim precepts, but only on Muslims. The most significant of this is 'khalawat' or "being in close proximity of someone of the opposite sex" (examples here http://www.orientexpat.com/forum/5878-khalwat-close-proximity/).

Now a couple of days after the customs caused the long border wait the Religious Police arrested the head of customs for Jahore Bahru for khalawat. The news report read something like this:

Last night in a raid on room 214 of the Pussy Cat Motel in Jahore Baru the Religious Police entered the room registered to the head of Jahore Bahru Customs at 2:37 AM and arrested the Chief of Customs for khalawat. Police report that the head of customs was found in EXTREMELY CLOSE PROXIMITY with a 19 year old woman who works as a professional masseuse at the Big Boy Relax Massage Parlor.


The work to rule activity of the Customs Agents was suspended the next day.

[cliffordu]

12. Great story -

Still doesn't explain the police escort........

Some kind of morals charge???

[Cha]

6. Good..we need the infrastructure

now!

[Wednesdays]

7. K&R

:kick:

[SpartanDem]

13. I hope we see this in more bills.nt

[HamdenRice]

14. Buy American in the stimulus is a bad idea

Last time we tried something analogous to this was the Smoot Hawley tariff, which helped turn the 1929 stock market crash into the Great Depression.

The US, Mexico and Canada are essentially one economy. Eventually, we're going to need to start exporting again, and if we restrict imports now, what incentive is there later for other countries to take imports from us?