Global Trade Watch says:
The hysteria coming from European Union (EU) and Canadian officials about the Buy America and Buy American domestic preferences in the U.S. stimulus bill is particularly odd, given that both the EU and Canada have wisely excluded considerably broader swaths of their procurement activity from World Trade Organization (WTO) rules (and in the case of Canada also from the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA) than has the United States. Because of this, the EU and Canada have no obligation to provide U.S. firms with access to a wide array of their government contracts.
For instance, while the United States safeguards its preferences (only) for domestic iron and steel used in federally funded state transportation projects, Canada carves out steel, motor vehicles and coal altogether (for all provinces, for all sectors), and also carves out all construction contracts issued by the Departments of Transport. The EU carved out of its WTO procurement obligations contracts awarded by federal governments and sub-federal governments in connection with activities in the areas of drinking water, energy, transport or telecommunications....... it is hypocritical for countries that wisely have taken broad trade-pact exceptions, which ensure that they have no obligation to provide U.S. firms with access to their taxpayer-funded projects, to attack the relatively narrow and modest U.S. domestic preferences. (See excerpts of the WTO and NAFTA texts below for more detail.)Under the WTO and NAFTA procurement agreements, Canada excludes:* All "construction contracts tendered on behalf of the Department of Transport";
* Steel, motor vehicles and coal procurement for all provinces; and
* Procurements in respect of "urban rail and urban transportation equipment, systems, components and materials incorporated therein, as well as all project-related materials of iron or steel".Plus, NAFTA procurement rules do not apply to any construction contracts for Canadian provinces.Under the WTO procurement agreement, the EU actually includes a reciprocity requirement for service-sector contracts and excludes the following measures in its general notes applying to all sectors and annexes:* "Contracts awarded by entities in Annexes 1 [federal governments] and 2 [subfederal governments] in connection with activities in the fields of drinking water, energy, transport or telecommunications";
* Contracts for U.S. firms with airport, water and urban transportation authorities;
* Sector-specific exclusions for the United States in respect of all EU states' subfederal governments' service-sector procurement until and unless the U.S. offers similar commitments; and
* Country-specific exceptions for Austria, Finland and Sweden.The reciprocity agreement excludes commitments from U.S. service providers seeking procurement contracts in sectors (and with levels of government) that the United States has not reciprocally offered to the European Union.
Now, I know this is not what Global Trade Watch had in mind, but If they are right on the facts (and I haven't checked this), I wonder whether this is a good opportunity to start up some negotiatations to further reduce the discrimination against foreigners that is so prevalent in government procurement.
