The US is actually the third largest exporter in the world (behind Germany and China).

Even without retaliation from the EU, the US Exporting market could see detrimental effects that go on for much longer than the rest of the economical crisis. Afterall, if Europeans lose their jobs because Americans have stopped buying their products, then the Europeans won't have any money to buy those American products. (and that's IF the EU Gov'ts don't do anything).

This kind of action will only make the whole problem much worse on a world wide scale.

The "Buy American" clause just seems ridiculously short sighted to me. It'll have a negative effect on other nations now, and could cause more problems for both the US and the rest of the world in the future.

Still, at the least the UK are increasing trade with China now, which may negate these effects slightly.

I see a lot of people here claiming that this bill will save jobs. It only saves them in the short term. I know there are a lot of intelligent people here who had economics so I'm astounded by the amount of short-sightedness.

The moment the US buys its own products instead of cheaper foreign steel it basicly puts them in the place of being the same/less for more money. In turn, having less money to spend on other products.
Hell, they could use the saved money to fund the steelindustry. It will not be as effective but you lose only a percentage of jobs and do not piss of the rest of the world.
Secondly, There are industries far more profitable in the US then the steel idnustry, send funding there then where competing makes sense! If it grows, people get jobs there.

Lastly, we - as in, the rest of the world - do not want to see the US fail. Nor do we want a piece of the recovery plan. We want fair trade, a return to normalcy. Protectionism is a thing of the 30's and we moved well past that. It did not work then, it will definatly not work now in terms of recovering the economy.

If the government is so anal about spending it on it's own country then fine, go ahead. But invest it in new projects and get people to work there. You end with less of a headache, more good-will and the same effect as protectionism.

And if the US govt lets Americans lose their jobs, then they have more people on welfare, and less and less people paying taxes, which keeps the entire system stable.

Picture it like this - You're a farmer. You just collected your harvest, and a famine is going around making all the soil in the world unusable for the next 2-3 years. Do you horde your harvest and save it for your family to survive through the crisis, or do you continue to sell your crops for the sake of trade/profit on it? And no, you don't have enough to do both.

The protectionist clause is the nonsensical cherry on top of an asinine stimulus package. I hope the EU and Canada continue to oppose this particular clause and the Republicans continue to oppose the stimulus in its entirety.

Protectionist laws raise taxes (tariffs) on imported goods and/or impose limits (quotas) on the amount of goods governments permit to enter into a country. aka steel in this case

They are laws that not only restrict the choice of consumer goods, but also contribute greatly both to the cost of goods and to the cost of doing business. So under "protectionism" you end up poorer, with less money for buying other things you want and need. Moreover, protectionist laws that reduce consumer spending power actually end up destroying jobs. In the USA, for example, according to the US Department of Labor's own statistics, "protectionism" destroys eight jobs in the general economy for every one saved in a protected industry.

I think you guys are missing the point of the law—its not to take away anything that is already in place---it x company wants to build a new office building they will still but French steel or such

But if the government wants to build x road from point a to point be (creating a new job) they want it to be done with only American products

How is that taking away from anything in the EU?

Hmm?

Its not its creating something out of nothing for this country?


Now if the blip in the plan was to limit both government and private practices then maybe you would have a leg to stand on but as of now its only talking about limiting government sponsored programs

Which I support entirely, our government should be able to stand on its own legs since it’s the united states of American and not the united states of the eu


And vice versa you and yours own countries should be able to stand on their own as well


Simple accounting dictates you should never have more then 10% of your business be tied up in one customer

And further more this is not a permanent program that will forever be in place, its just a shot in the dark to try and help our country get back on their feet, b/c right now we are treading uncharted water without even the luxury life jacket

Yeah Im familiar with tarrif laws etc from the early days, its actually pounded into our minds by 6th grade.

You're ignoring the point that many businesses are closing their doors forever as is, because of services being outsourced, or goods gained cheaply from other nations. So, what good is a nation that is mostly unemployed because businesses in the country fail? What you're suggesting sounds like vampyrism of the American economy - you'd rather suck it dry than let it heal.

Your stat quote applies in a non-recession economy well, but not in one that has a widening pit of crisis.

Face it, the only way to save our nations is to rethink how we live, start scaling back, and brace for the impact of what might actually become a depression.

This is a nice quote that I read somewhere:

trade protectionism is wrong at any time, but certainly during an economic downturn for a host of reasons.

We can look to recent history when Bush took a protectionist moment and imposed tarrifs against steel imports in the early 2000s. While approximately 180,000 steel jobs were protected, the reciprocal actions resulted in over 200,000 jobs lost as a result.

We must not forget that in 2007 and 2008, the highlight of our economy was our exports as our manufacturers were booming with requests from foreign demand. The rise for our exports came as a direct result of trade liberalization, free trade, and a slumping dollar. This acted as a force multiplier for our goods and services because the trade liberalization that opened up markets for our goods made them that much more desirable due to the cheap price. In fact, in 2007, every country we had a free trade agreement with resulted in a TRADE SURPLUS for our nation.

Imposing barriers to trade will indeed result in trade reciprocity and nations will close their markets to our goods. We must remember that the very definition of an export means that these are goods and services that Americans are not buying or do not want. Hence, when foreign markets become closed to our exports, exporting manufacturers and other businesses will not be able to recoup those sales losses from American consumers. Companies like GE and Caterpillar DEPEND on exports, over 60% of their sales come from overseas. Thus, any protectionist actions taken by our government will hurt many other companies.

But we must also take into account the consumer. While buying local is a wonderful concept to those who can afford it, the fact of the matter is that those with lower disposable incomes shop at Dollar Stores and Wal-Mart to stretch their dollars further and save money. The reason why Wal-Mart and Dollar stores can charge so little is because they are importing cheaper goods from overseas. But it isn't just the consumers and final destination retailiers that benefit from trade liberalization, it's all the stops in-between. Our ports, supply chain distribution companies, import/export companies, marketers, etc.. all have a stake in delivering goods and reap the benefits of good trade practices. In addition, many of the so-called "foreign goods" are actually manufactured by American companies located overseas. Unfortunately, those realities are not measured by GDP, but they ARE measured by GNP.

From our retailers, transportation systems, ports, exports, to consumers, we all benefit from trade liberalization. Putting up barriers to trade during a recession is folly, pure folly, and Smoot-Hawley ought to remind us of that reality.

Unfortunately, the "stimulus" bill now making its way through congress has protectionist language, which will hurt jobs in other countries, such as Mexico and Canada. They will respond, by putting up barriers and the recession will worsen.

Welcome to the 1930s, FDR, and a looming Depression. We have not learned from history, so we'll have to repeat those lessons again.

If Obama really wanted to help the Steel industry, as well as any other industry, he should cut corporate taxes as well as payroll taxes to make them more competitive in the global marketplace.