Politicians unite against ´´Buy America Policy´´

[Andem]

Premiers back Harper on fight against Buy America policy

Prime Minister Stephen Harper, leader of the Conservative Party of Canada.


Aug 07, 2009 04:30 AM

Robert Benzie

REGINA–Canada's premiers are firmly behind Prime Minister Stephen Harper in his bid to counter protectionist trade policies being adopted in the U.S.
In a rare show of unity, premiers of all political stripes yesterday vowed to help Harper as he fights the so-called Buy America provisions being applied by American state and local governments that prevent Canadian companies from bidding on projects funded by President Barack Obama's $787 billion (U.S.) stimulus package.

Harper is to meet with Obama on Sunday in Mexico, and with the premiers' endorsement in hand, he is expected to tell the president Canada is ready to move ahead in the effort to neutralize the Buy America problem. This will lay the groundwork, sources say, for International Trade Minister Stockwell Day to send a letter to U.S. Trade Representative Ronald Kirk next week indicating that Ottawa is ready to begin bilateral negotiations aimed at solving the issue.


Premier Dalton McGuinty said it's essential the premiers give Harper a "strong hand" for the meeting with the U.S. president and Mexican President Felipe Calderon in Guadalajara, Mexico.


"We cannot escape our interdependence. This is an era of globalization. We're in this together," McGuinty said at the annual Council of the Federation meeting.

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thestar.com

I like the idea of Buy American and I wish this concept was promoted at every level within the economy because the US is going bankrupt thanks to their lust for Chinese-made goods. This could be a step in the right direction, but with respect to NAFTA and the relationship between the US and Canada, I think our politicians are making the right steps.

 

[Ron in Regina]

Without teeth (Like Softwood Lumber), will anything that Canada does make
any differance at all?

 

[EagleSmack]

Obama isn't as great as some think now is he?

 

[JLM]

Without teeth (Like Softwood Lumber), will anything that Canada does make
any differance at all?

Would it be impossible for these guys to work out a plan that is mutally beneficial to both Canada and the U.S.? Patonizing China should be secondary, since the main outcome of that is supporting their sweatshops by buying crappy merchandise.

 

[EagleSmack]

Would it be impossible for these guys to work out a plan that is mutally beneficial to both Canada and the U.S.? Patonizing China should be secondary, since the main outcome of that is supporting their sweatshops by buying crappy merchandise.

You would think but Union labor is a big money giver to Obama.

Now they are providing muscle to Obama's failing town hall meetings. Reminds me of the Pinkerton Cops of old.

 

[karrie]

It seems to me that so long as Canada is running commercials from Helman's all proud about using Canadian products, Chapman's about using Canadian milk, and from numerous tourist boards about vacationing locally... that we're being a bit hypocritical. Sure, we don't have an official policy set, but, people are being encouraged at every turn to keep their money local during this recession. People are also being encouraged for environmental reasons to buy more locally.

Do we stop that? Or do we accept that we're doing it alongside the Americans, and try to strike a new balance in trade?

 

[AnnaG]

I'd go for the new balance in trade. Seems to me any time the US wants to strike a deal, though, the States gain at the other guy's expense.
We buy mostly Canadian stuff anyway. We have a Great Canadian Warehouse Club near here a little farther down the road from Walmart. Their gas is usually 2 or 3 cents/l cheaper than anywhere else in town, too.

 

[Toro]

Buy America is bad policy.

All of the incumbent Democrats who were elected in 2006 and 2008 were protectionist and anti-free trade. Every single one of them.

 

[coldstream]

Free Trade has been a disaster for this country. Harper is a radical, classic 'Free' Market economic liberal, who plans to expand Free Trade agreements with Europe, Latin America and Asia.

He's a petty ideologue, an intellectual mediocrity, and he's got lots of company. Free Trade and Economic Liberalism is what got us into the crisis we are in, and all Harper proposes is more of the same. The man is an utter fool.

Every country needs to protect its productive economy with tariffs, and quotas. It needs the sovereign right to develop monetary and fiscal policies which promote the growth of the physical economy, which are always compromised by Free Trade Agreements. The best thing we could do right now is protect our own from the malevolent forces of 'free' markets roaming the globe for plunder.

 

[Toro]

So you support the Buy America policy then.

 

[coldstream]

I do. But America is an ally. We would be well advised to prepare for a post NAFTA era, by developing constructive national policies that protect both our economies. Our economies are complementary in many ways. We were much richer when we applied reasonable levels of protection, and put full and fair employment as the goal of those policies, rather than the enrichment of bankers, speculators and trading middlemen. I support protectionism, not isolationism.

 

[AnnaG]

I do. But America is an ally. We would be well advised to prepare for a post NAFTA era, by developing constructive national policies that protect both our economies. Our economies are complementary in many ways. We were much richer when we applied reasonable levels of protection, and put full and fair employment as the goal of those policies, rather than the enrichment of bankers, speculators and trading middlemen. I support protectionism, not isolationism.

8O Freaky. I agree. It's a miracle. lmao

 

[coldstream]

Who would have guessed we'd find something we agree on Anna. It must be in the odds of those two infinitesimal particles that collided in infinite space and time and produced the Big Bang.

Uh.. well.. it doesn't happen often anyway. ;-)

 

[AnnaG]

Who would have guessed we'd find something we agreed on Anna. It must be in the odds of those two infinitesimal particles that collided in infinite space and time and produced the Big Bang.

Uh.. well.. it doesn't happen often anyway. ;-)

That must be it. lol

 

[karrie]

So you support the Buy America policy then.

I know I do, just not for the reasons that Obama's going about it. I think that for sheer resource management, any nation ought to be making sure as many of its needs are met locally as possible before it seeks goods from out of the nation. In the days of dwindling petroleum and rising cost, shipping goods willy nilly across the globe ought to stop.

 

[Trex]

I posted another rebuttal to the Buy American policies on a differing thread and I am not going to rehash that again.
It seems that some people do not really understand what these bills are about.
It has nothing to do with labeling products as "Made in Canada" or "Made in the United States" and giving consumers the right to choose their own shopping preferences.
I support small business, local sustainable agriculture and the right to choose and purchase locally sourced products.
"Buy American" bills are totally unrelated to those issues.
They have absolutely nothing to do with free choice, in fact they are the opposite.
They are Federal bills that apply on a National level to lock out all foreign goods.
America is a debtor nation,it buys on credit and it buys more than it manufactures.
Canada is an exporting nation and it sells more than it buys internationally.
Canada is Americas number one trading partner and main supplier of energy and raw materials.
To federally lock out Canadian products at will destroys our trading relationship with the United States.
It has nothing to do with choice, or prefence, or business relationships, best value, or most ethically sourced or produced product, or even the cheapest bid.
Its a Federal law that locks out Canadian products or raw materials or services.
It destroys the relationships created over years and trashes the standards set under GATT, Free Trade and NAFTA.
And it is probably going to start an international trade war.

Others have posted how they agree with protectionism.
How they want to scrap NAFTA, GATT,Free Trade and the like.
That defines isolationism in my view.
I am not up to a long philosophical debate over protectionism, socialism, market economies and rurally based forms of protectionist governance.
I have done the rabble/babble thing and am well aware how pure socialism is unarguably attractive to some highly educated individuals.
We now live in a trading community that spans the gloge.
The Americans need foreign sources of oil and energy.
The Japanese and Koreans need imports of copper and steel,nickel and oil.
Canada exports oil and energy, nickel and copper, gold and diamonds.
And Canada imports electronics and Japanese and German cars and Harley- Davidson motorcycles for chubby,balding, older guys with male menopause.
Its a trade balance.
Protectionism and international trade wars will convert the current recession into a world wide extended depression.
It doesn't just idle Japanese and Korean plants and manufacturing.
It idles our mines and rigs and manufacturing as well.
Protectionism and isolationism extended the depth and breadth of the Great Depression many times over.
Out society is based on trade and commerce.
Nobody is saying that it cannot be done ethically or without banning exploitation or abuse.
But to tear down our trade structures or start protectionist trade wars is mutually destructive.
This could easily change from a U or W shaped recession into an L shaped depression.
Just my two cents.
Trex

 

[petros]

We'll see how they like "buy american" when cdn barley isn't available for beer.

 

[Tonington]

See above, those two cents? It's not much good to keep the value in those two cents locked behind a firewall. It should be allowed to pass unimpeded through international boundaries.

You can't close borders without shutting down opportunity and production in your own area...

 

[petros]

This trade crap is just primer for people to adjust to the fact that the NAU is the answer to these woes and is now just 4 months away.

 

[coldstream]

The United States economy was built by Alexander Hamilton on what became known as the American System. It's primary tenets were the empowerment of the productive capacity of American people through policies of a stable currency, public investment and ownership of critical infrastructure, available and affordable credit, and tariffs on the import of manufacture and agriculture with the specific intent of preventing unfair competition, and ensuring full and fairly compensated employment at the domestic level. In the U.S. and everywhere around the world where it was implemented it created growth, industrialization, integrated manufacture and equitably shared prosperity.

Have no doubt that the antithesis of this, in 'Free Markets', which has ruled the world since the collapse of the Bretton Woods Agreement in 1971, has FAILED, profoundly and catastrophically. Canada now has an army of unemployed and underemployed who are no longer recognized in official statistics. Our wealth is increasingly polarized between an ever diminishing group of haves, involved in speculation or trade, and have nots, who used to be involved in productive enterprise.

The 2 key components of this policy involves Free Trade which i have dealt with, and Monetarism. It is the latter that might be even more pernicious than the former. It treats money as an unregulated, traded commodity, without reference to the dynamic national economy it was meant to support only as a means of exchange. The floating, globalized currency paradigm has become a decisive disincentive for domestic investment in the real physical economy. It prevents any predictability and stability in prospects for that investment.

The growth of monetary aggregates, currency derivatives, now in the $100's of trillions, which this spurred, hold a real claim to the world's production that can never be realized. If, or when, that collapses like the credit derivatives did last year, it will wash away the world's financial system. The speculative sector says that these all even out, but nobody knows the anomalies and disequilibriums exist in this gigantic monolith, and nobody can assume it will deflate in an orderly fashion.

Both the U.S. and Canada have both the right, and the responsibility to promote domestic consumption of domestic production. That's what built both our economies. They have the duty also to develop monetary and fiscal policies that promote the General Welfare through full and fair employment, and encourage investment to advance technology and real wealth creation.

A constructive and reasoned dialogue is implicit with this, with trading partners, to take advantage of positive aspects of international trade and cross fertilization of technology. The difference between this and so called Free Trade is the application of reason, rather than the mindless 'invisible hand' credulity accorded to a corrupt ideology.

It is only when we accepted the 'Free' Market dogma, that our nation impoverished itself, lost all sense of it sovereignty and prostrated itself before foreign bankers and traders, whose only aim was to plunder what they could of our assets and resources. It's all collapsing now. It is collapsing because it both untenable and immoral.

Protection does not mean isolation, it means a national economic identity in a world community of nation states. Free Trade does not mean enrolling ourselves in benign fraternity of nations, it means capitulation to a post national regime founded on greed and usury, run by oligarchs, with no allegiance to any nation.

That's my 2 cents into the cup. :lol: