Trump went back on his promise to 'Buy American.' Good for him. - WaPo Editorial Board
AT HIS inauguration, President Trump struck a grand note of economic nationalism: We will follow two simple rules: Buy American and hire American. Four days later, on Jan. 24, he ordered a restart to the Keystone XL oil pipeline; in the following weeks, he repeatedly implied that he had done so on the condition that the 1,200-mile tube linking Alberta, Canada, with refineries on the Gulf of Mexico would be constructed of American steel.
Well, promises were made to be modified. On March 2, the White House announced that the presidents strict Buy American rule does not apply to Keystone XL after all. This was only reasonable, given that the Canadian pipeline company had already stockpiled the necessary metal, about half of which was made outside the United States and half in Arkansas, by a foreign-owned firm, according to Reuters. The White House argued this was consistent with the fine print of the presidents Jan. 24 order directing the secretary of commerce to come up with a plan to require U.S.-made steel on all new pipelines: Keystone XL had been planned for almost a decade before then-President Barack Obama blocked it for environmental reasons, so it is not new.
Works for us! We never bought Mr. Trumps Buy American shtick in the first place, any more than we did Mr. Obamas similar provisos to various sections of his 2009 economic stimulus bill. Politically popular and (for certain sensitive national-security procurements) occasionally necessary though they may be, Buy American provisions generally make little economic sense.
To the extent they actually do succeed in identifying pure made-in-the-USA goods and requiring contractors to use them, whether theyre the best and cheapest available or not, they raise the cost of infrastructure and lower its quality. And given the prevalence of global supply chains for manufactured goods, its often not possible to identify such goods at least not without expensive, time-consuming bureaucratic hassle of the sort Mr. Trump otherwise claims hes trying to eliminate. It took Mr. Obamas Energy Department well more than a year to complete the Buy American regulations for the stimulus bills energy-efficiency grant program.
more
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trump-reneged-on-his-plan-to-buy-american-good-for-him/2017/03/10/8bc036d8-05b6-11e7-b1e9-a05d3c21f7cf_story.html?utm_term=.1447e0475dc6&wpisrc=nl_headlines&wpmm=1
T_i_B
(14,737 posts)About the only things that you can get that are wholly made in 1 country of origin with materials from that country of origin are rocks and minerals that have been quarried & mined in that country with little to no processing.
The world has moved on since the 19th century, and protectionism is no longer any sort of solution to anything.
gordianot
(15,237 posts)Trump is a serial liar even when there is no reason to lie. Anything Trump says should be rejected and closely scrutinised for lies.