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Trade Wars Brewing In Economic Malaise Ordered by Congress to « buy American » when spending money from the $787 billion stimulus package, the town of Peru, Ind., stunned its Canadian supplier by rejecting sewage pumps made outside of Toronto. After a Navy official spotted Canadian pipe fittings in a construction project at Camp Pendleton, Calif., they were hauled out of the ground and replaced with American versions. In recent weeks, other Canadian manufacturers doing business with U.S. state and local governments say they have been besieged with requests to sign affidavits pledging that they will only supply materials made in the USA. Outrage spread in Canada, with the Toronto Star last week bemoaning « a plague of protectionist measures in the U.S. » and Canadian companies openly fretting about having to shift jobs to the United States to meet made-in-the-USA requirements. This week, the Canadians fired back. A number of Ontario towns, with a collective population of nearly 500,000, retaliated with measures effectively barring U.S. companies from their municipal contracts — the first shot in a larger campaign that could shut U.S. companies out of billions of dollars worth of Canadian projects. Rather than merely raising taxes on imported goods — acts that are subject to international treaties — nations including the United States are finding creative ways to engage in protectionism through domestic policy decisions that are largely not governed by international law. Unlike a classic trade war, there is little chance of containment through, for example, arbitration at the World Trade Organization in Geneva. Additionally, such moves are more likely to have unintended consequences or even backfire on the stated desire to create domestic jobs. |
C’est la guerre ! 
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Je pensais qu’Obama avait mis un terme à ces stupidités protectionnistes.
Une autre promesse de brisée. Ce qu’il n’a pas pu faire au grand jour il l’a fait en hypocrite.
Les compagnies canadiennes devraient intenter une action de classe aux EU puisque Obama viole ses engagements. Les gouvernements provinciaux et federal devraient s’impliquer pour faire appliquer le libre-echange. Ce n’est pas de l’etatisme dans ce cas-la.
En attendant, elles pourraient creer des facades commerciales fictives et apposer le label Made in America si c’est legal. Le Canada est en Amerique apres tout.
Obama fait par la porte d’en arrière ce qu’il ne peut pas faire par la porte de devant.
Les traités interdisent aux gouvernement fédéraux de faire du protectionnisme, mais les villes ne sont pas visé par ces traités.
Donc au lieu de dépenser l’argent directement, Obama donne l’argent aux ville qui peuvent mettre en place le protectionnisme.
Dégelasse et stupide.
Basée sur l’exemple suivant, je doute que ce soit possible:
Take, for instance, Duferco Farrell Corp., a Swiss-Russian partnership that took over a previously bankrupt U.S. steel plant near Pittsburgh in the 1990s and employed 600 people there.
The new buy American provisions, the company said, are being so broadly interpreted that Duferco Farrell is on the verge of shutting down. Part of an increasingly global supply chain that seeks efficiencies by spreading production among multiple nations, it manufactures coils at its Pennsylvania plant using imported steel slabs that are generally not sold commercially in the United States. The partially foreign production process means the company’s coils do not fit the current definition of made in the USA — a designation that the stimulus law requires for thousands of public works projects across the nation.
In recent weeks, its largest client — a steel pipemaker located one mile down the road — notified Duferco Farrell that it would be canceling orders. Instead, the client is buying from companies with 100 percent U.S. production to meet the new stimulus regulations. Duferco has had to furlough 80 percent of its workforce.
« You need to tell me how inhibiting business between two companies located one mile apart is going to save American jobs, » said Bob Miller, Duferco Farrell’s executive vice president. « I’ve got 600 United Steel Workers out there who are going to lose their jobs because of this. And you tell me this is good for America? »
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/14/AR2009051404241.html