Why Not Buy American?

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A clip from the San Francisco Examiner:

House Democrats insisted on including “Buy American” provisions in the $825 billion economic stimulus bill. The provisions — which are mirrored in the Senate Democrats’ version of the legislation — require that federal funds for stimulus projects can be spent on steel and iron only from domestic producers.

That’s another way of telling foreign producers to keep out. Such trade barriers damage economic growth just like tariffs that make goods imported from overseas cost more

"Buy American" is one of those phrases that sound right, but the world's Free Traders don't like it at all.

Lets face it - Free Trade means finding the lowest cost producer in many cases. Its why we no longer have a textile industry in the United States. Labor was cheaper elsewhere in the world. So we put Americans out of work, in order that other Americans buy products which has a greater profit margin to corporations.

Instead of a open-ended free trade policy, why wouldn't we say that those countries who support our political objectives world-wide are automatically free trade partners, and those who oppose it are not. Oh yeah, we want Hugo Chavez's oil and gas.

We in the United States are allowing these policies to weaken our superpower status.