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Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Pat Buchanan :: Townhall.com Columnist
'Buy American' -- or Bye-Bye America
by Pat Buchanan
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"British jobs for British workers!" thundered Gordon Brown, as he emerged from the shadow of Tony Blair to become prime minister.

His populist sloganeering has now come back to bite him.

Across Britain, thousands laid down tools in wildcat strikes in solidarity with a walkout from a French-owned oil refinery in North Killinghome -- to protest a $300 million contract to an Italian company that plans to bring in 400 Italian and Portuguese workers to fulfill it.

As Brown pleaded from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, that Britain must not retreat into "protectionism," strikes spread to Scotland, Wales and Ulster.

Britain's commitment to let foreigners buy up its utilities and industries and bring in foreign workers to run them has backfired. Brown's own Labor Party is now angrily demanding that he live up to his pledge: British jobs for British workers.

"The Return of Economic Nationalism," wails the alarmed cover of The Economist. And understandably so.

For the stimulus bills of both Houses have a "Buy American" provision mandating that in "public works" only U.S. iron, steel and manufactures be used. The provision came out of the appropriations committee of the House on a 55-to-0 vote.

The Senate watered it down by declaring the Buy American provision must be consistent with all U.S. trade commitments. But Congress is sending a message: The rebuilding of America is to be a project of, by and for Americans, not outsourced. Sen. McCain's free-trade amendment, to strip all Buy American provisions from the bill, was routed 65 to 31

The reaction of Barack Obama, a NAFTA skeptic in 2008 with bumper stickers that read, "Buy American, Vote Obama," was to genuflect to the gods of globalism and recant his economic patriotism.

"I think it would be a mistake ... at a time when worldwide trade is declining, for the United States to start sending a message that somehow we're just looking out after ourselves," he told Fox News. We don't want to "trigger a trade war," he told ABC.

Apparently, Obama was unnerved by rumbles from Europe, which is threatening to drag us before a World Trade Organization tribunal and have "Buy American" banished forever.

But there is no easy way out now for a Democratic Party where economic nationalism is rampant. If Congress drops or Obama refuses to enforce the Buy American provision, and billions of stimulus dollars are spent on foreign iron, steel and cement, Middle America will know whom to blame. But if Americans get the contracts, and Europeans get nothing, Europe will have to decide whether to retaliate and start a trade war with a populist and nationalist America. Continued...
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About The Author
Pat Buchanan is a founding editor of The American Conservative magazine, and the author of many books including State of Emergency: The Third World Invasion and Conquest of America .
 
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Reply # 1
Date: Feb 22, 2009 - 11:26 AM EST
Buy American
#5, we have american made scroll art that we make, and sell at shows and events and 90 percent of the material we see at these events is imported from china. Now the bad part here is our small business cannot compete with the import items in cost or quanity, we make every single piece of wood by hand, using scroll saws and only US Domestic Hardwoods that we agreed to get from a company.

The problem here is Joe sitting at the event can call in an order and have 100 or more cases of Chineese crap sent via UPS to the building we are in and pay 10 cents per item and turn around and resell it for 3000 times the cost therefore making a huge profit.

How do you stop this, well you have the individuals that set up and promte these events regulate the import sales and encourage hand made or american made only, that will never happen and we hear over and over how sick people are of seeing the same junk over and over at every event, another good example is go to your local fair, 95 percent of the people at that fair will be selling re-sale items from China and you and I as consumers by continiously buying these cheap slave labor made items are to blame as well.
We need to think also about the fact that the more the US Government allows the import of foriern made material into the US and less US made product being shipped out then this also will create this problem. As we attend these shows every year 80 percent of our daily sales is from people that are trying to support an American Based business and in our case a Disabled Vet ran business as well.
What will NO-Bama and the Democrats do for the average american, nothing, this over priced stimuless package will do nothing for us and to date date all we see is more funds being sent into the failed banking and housing issue that unless you have superior credit you are still going to loose you home and does the governemt care, NO!
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Reply # 2
Date: Feb 11, 2009 - 9:52 PM EST
Buy American?
Should have thought of this before all of the jobs in manufacturing were sent to other countries. We're losing another thousand from Phoenix this year. I buy American when I can determine the product was actually made here and not just repackaged after it was imported from the country where the American jobs went. I think free trade means, "We want you to take our high paying jobs and we'll buy the products we used to make with our income from McDonalds."
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