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His concern centers on "buy American" provisions that are in the not-yet-approved bill.
Those provisions would require major public works projects to favor U.S. steel, iron and manufactured goods over imports.
The EU says that could start a trade war at a delicate time for the world economy, and also lead to retaliatory measures that only end up undermining the stimulus package.
Originally posted by imd12c4funn
get out of the UN, tell the EU to KMA, and keep the holster safety unlocked.
If the EU thinks it has the right to dictate US legislation, I say draw a line in the dirt with our spurs, and get ready for a gun fight.
They, the feiners of special olympians across the pond are so pompus to have the gall to warn "threaten" us?
I say talks cheap, (as we know from Congress and the Executive branch)
Come get some.
www.kvoa.com
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Originally posted by Frankidealist35
I find it hilarious that Europe is having a problem with people here in the USA wanting to buy American goods.
Why would we NOT want to buy goods from the people that work here?
Originally posted by Frankidealist35
I find it hilarious that Europe is having a problem with people here in the USA wanting to buy American goods.
Why would we NOT want to buy goods from the people that work here?
Originally posted by Frankidealist35
I find it hilarious that Europe is having a problem with people here in the USA wanting to buy American goods.
Why would we NOT want to buy goods from the people that work here?
Most economists agree the Depression began with the U.S. stock market crash of 1929, but it took Reed Smoot and Willis Hawley to really make it "Great."
The two U.S. politicians sought to protect U.S. workers from cheaper European imports and in July 1930 wrote a bill that hiked tariffs on 20,000 imported goods.
In one sense, it worked great.
The U.S. State Department says the Smoot-Hawley Tariff was responsible for imports from Europe declining from a 1929 high of $1.3 billion to just $390 million in 1932.
As for protecting the American worker, unemployment was at 7.8 per cent in 1930 when the bill was passed, but jumped to 25.1 per cent by 1933. U.S. exports to Europe fell from $2.3 billion in 1929 to $784 million in 1932.
Canada didn’t even wait for the Smoot-Hawley to pass before it retaliated. In their book International Economics In the Age of Globalization, authors Wilson Brown and Jan Hogendorn say Canada put new duties on 16 U.S. imports to Canada, affecting about 30 per cent of cross-border trade. A month after the bill was passed, 125 products were hit with new or higher tariffs, and Canada looked to Britain and the Empire for new markets.
Now Smoot and Hawley are back.
On Monday, International Trade Minister Stockwell Day compared the provisions in the new U.S. stimulus bill to the pair.
As written, the bill would require major public works projects to favour U.S. steel, iron and manufactured goods over imported ones.
Canada sells about $11-billion worth of steel to the U.S. every year, and Day worries other U.S. industries will lobby for similar protections. Although he says he’s “cautiously optimistic” the U.S. will back down.
"Their awareness of our concern, and wanting to do something, appears genuine at this point. And we'll just keep working closely with them," Day said.
"The last thing we need now is a retaliatory trade war."
It’s an issue that forces politicians to a tough place. Whatever benefits they see to their own economies from freer trade, they must be responsive to the voters who don’t necessarily appreciate the exquisite market forces that move their jobs overseas or flood their markets with cheap foreign grain.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown may champion "British jobs for British workers" at a Labour party conference, but he was in a tough position this week when thousands of British workers went on wildcat strikes, protesting the use of cheaper Italian and Portuguese workers by British contractors.
Still, the laws of the European Union seem quite clear: they allow for free movement of labour.
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