Tackling ‘Buy America’

(Toronto Star)

The federal government is putting the onus on the provinces to take the first step toward resolving the trade dispute with the United States over "Buy America" requirements tied to U.S. infrastructure funding.

As the Star’s Les Whittington reported on Friday, federal Trade Minister Stockwell Day wants the provinces to sign on to a declaration committing them (and their municipalities) not to discriminate against American companies bidding for infrastructure contracts here. This declaration would then be taken to Washington as a peace offering of sorts: you stop discriminating against our products and we’ll stop discriminating against yours. […]

The problem with Day’s proposed compromise is that it rests on two presuppositions that are shaky at best.

The first is that Canadian provinces and municipalities are already discriminating against American products in their own infrastructure spending. There is scant evidence that they are.

The second is that the U.S. Congress attached Buy America clauses to infrastructure funding in retaliation against Canada. Again, there is little evidence to support this.

Read the complete editorial here.