Oh the Hypocrisy of Canadian and EU Faux Freetraders!
From tipster, blogger, and movie critic extraordinaire Alan Vanneman comes word of Public Citizen's revealing take on Canadian and EU hypocrisy related to President Obama's "Buy American" campaign:
While the United States (only) safeguards its preferences for domestic iron and steel used in federally funded state transportation projects, Canada simply carves out steel, motor vehicles and coal altogether (for all provinces, for all sectors), and also carves out all construction contracts issued by the Department of Transport. The EU carved out of its WTO procurement obligations all EU members' country contracts awarded by federal governments and subfederal governments in connection with activities in the fields of drinking water, energy, transport or telecommunications. (On the links, just click on Appendix I, Annexes I-II, and the general notes. Some bits will be easy to read, other bits less so.)
Translated out of trade lingo, both Canada and EU give their nations' companies products much more generous preferences than Congress is even considering giving ours.
Vanneman on The Encyclopedia Shatnerica.
