Buy American Predictions Coming True

(Barrie McKenna — Globe & Mail)

Despite Obama’s anti-protectionism rhetoric, Canadian manufacturers are finding themselves suddenly cut off from U.S. markets as his $800-billion (U.S.) stimulus plan takes effect

More than a half-dozen times since taking office, President Barack Obama has implored recession-weary nations not to build walls around their economies.

From Ottawa and London to Prague, Ankara and back home again, the U.S. President’s message has been consistent: protectionism “hurts us all in the end.”

Apparently, the warning didn’t reach the Camp Pendleton Marine base in Oceanside, Calif., where last week a contractor installing a sewage line ripped a section of Canadian-made pipe out of the ground, complaining it didn’t meet new “Buy American” rules.

“They exhumed the product and replaced it with an identical product,” complained a disheartened Veso Sobot, whose company Ipex Inc. of Don Mills, Ont., made the pipe. “The only problem was that it said ‘Made in Canada.’ “

The offending plastic pipe was made at an Ipex plant in London, Ont., one of the Belgian-owned manufacturer’s 15 Canadian factories. And according to Mr. Sobot, the sewage project isn’t even covered by any foreign content restrictions.

“This is protectionism run amok,” Mr. Sobot said in an interview. Read more here.