Posted on 05/14/2007 2:59:34 PM PDT by pissant
WASHINGTON – Less than a year after losing a bitter fight to tighten "buy American" requirements on purchases of military equipment, Rep. Duncan Hunter and his allies have launched a new attack against activities they see as a threat to national security and defense industry jobs.
Advertisement But like last year, Hunter, R-El Cajon, is facing opposition from the Bush administration, Senate Republicans and leading defense industry officials who argue that the House Armed Services Committee chairman's approach would hurt the companies he wants to help and weaken national defense. Hunter's target this year is "offsets," a factor in nearly every sale of U.S. defense products overseas.
Offsets require the American seller to buy a package of goods and services from the customer nation or to provide other considerations that, on the surface, often exceed the value of the defense products being sold.
Although these side deals typically require U.S. defense companies to make concessions such as transferring sensitive defense technology or assigning subcontracts to the buying country's companies, they often involve somewhat bizarre arrangements.
Past examples include major U.S. aerospace companies buying large quantities of Polish hams, promoting Spanish tourism in the United States and helping to establish a Domino's Pizza franchise in Barcelona, Spain.
Industry and administration officials say offsets are a necessary and often beneficial part of international defense trade.
But Hunter says they result in a transfer of U.S. defense jobs and critical technology to foreign countries and have become "a strategic threat to the U.S. defense industrial base."
What once was a small problem, Hunter said, "has now reached a level that demands that it be brought under control."
In an effort to impose that control, Hunter inserted into his committee's version of the 2005 defense authorization bill a provision called the "Defense Trade Reciprocity Act." The provision effectively would bar the Pentagon from buying products from any nation that requires offsets.
To illustrate the problem, Hunter cited the sale of 48 F-16 fighters to Poland, for which Lockheed Martin charged $3.9 billion but agreed to a bundle of offsets valued at $9.7 billion.
The offsets included the purchase of aircraft parts, material and services from multiple Polish companies, the transfer of technology for manufacturing turbines and support for Polish sales of helicopters in the Americas.
Those deals would shift jobs from U.S. suppliers to Poland and could lead to future competition for U.S. aerospace companies, Hunter said.
But he was particularly disturbed by a provision that required the purchase from a Polish shipyard of the kind of cargo ships that have been built by National Steel and Shipbuilding Co. in San Diego.
"The free-trade mantra is for free and open competition," Hunter said. "Does anyone really think that American shipyards had fair and open competition for the ships included in this deal?"
A recent Commerce Department report said "virtually all" of the U.S. defense trading partners "impose some type of offset requirement." U.S. defense exports in 2000, the most recent year for which figures were available, were $5.7 billion, of which $5.1 billion required offsets, the department reported.
Those exports produced 41,666 U.S. jobs and 9,688 jobs overseas, the report said.
A fact sheet from Hunter called that data "highly suspect."
The American Shipbuilding Association and the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers supported Hunter's offset ban, citing a loss of jobs they attributed partly to increasing foreign competition and offsets.
But the Aerospace Industry Association opposed the proposed offset restrictions.
"We believe such an approach would ultimately reduce U.S. foreign sales and the U.S. jobs and supplier base that benefit from those sales," association President John Douglas said.
Perhaps more powerful opposition came from the Defense Department, which told congressional leaders that the offset ban "would deny U.S. forces access to best-value products available from our allies and trading partners, negatively impacting U.S. and coalition war-fighting capabilities."
International trade experts said the offset issue is not as one-sided as Hunter and his supporters contend.
With the post-Cold War cutback in Pentagon weapons buys, foreign sales are increasingly important to keeping the U.S. producers in business, said Joel Johnson, vice president for international issues at the aerospace association.
He noted that from 1997 to 2003, Lockheed produced 526 F-16s, but the Air Force bought only 31.
Without those foreign sales, "that (production) line would have shut down years ago." The same could be said about the Pratt & Whitney and General Electric plants that produce engines for the F-16s, Johnson said.
Every country that bought F-16s required offsets, he noted.
Johnson said the stated values of offsets are greatly inflated, because "offsets provide the political cover for a government spending taxpayers' dollars for offshore purchases."
Richard Aboulafia, aerospace and defense business analyst for the Teal Group consulting firm, agreed and said the foreign government officials who demand offsets and the U.S. lawmakers who oppose them both are trying to improve their political images.
The two experts also pointed out that although the United States does not seek offsets, it requires that any significant defense system it buys from a foreign producer be assembled in this country.
That requirement "is the ultimate form of offset," Aboulafia said.
Although Hunter's anti-offset language met no opposition in the House, it has run into a stone wall in the Senate, just as his "buy American" provisions did last year.
The Senate actually went the opposite way, adopting an amendment by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., that would allow the Pentagon to waive the existing "buy American" requirements for the closest U.S. allies.
That sets up conditions for a repeat of last year's prolonged battle between the House and the Senate during the negotiations to reconcile the differences in the two versions of the defense bill.
The battle is expected to start next week when Congress returns from recess.
I see, now:’)
Hi IS running for Prez, you know. LOL
uh....it’s Countywide on the sign. LOL
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1833357/posts ... Countrywide to add 2,000 sales jobs
I saw that. They should hire this gal as its spokesbabe.
I didn't notice the sign at first.
Your job is to make sure the other poor SOBs die for theirs!
Sign, what sign?
If not, then we’ll get the por SOB’s to die for allah.
I love pissant.
I’ll need a closeup of that. LOL
Really? :’)
Know why?
Because no less than a few years after this, we have Duncan Hunter criticizing defense companies that sell to Iran and Syria.
Hunter tries to stop offsets, and a few years later, things have turned to this. And let's not forget the Swiss cthat stopped selling us satellite guidance components for our smart bombs. So it's no wonder Hunter trusts American military technology with...AMERICANS! (Shocking!)
Why does no one see things the way he does?
To my knowledge, he doesn't have any. But so what? I'm not one of these yahoos who thinks someone has to have been in the military to be President. Frankly, military service is no indicator that a person is more moral, more qualified, or even a better leader, than those who haven't served. Quite frankly, I've known a lot of guys who were in the service who I wouldn't trust to wash my car, much less lead my country.
Why does no one see things the way he does?
***So that he can distinguish himself and become president!
When Hunter breaks out of single digits in a primary, someone wake me up.
I’m sure he’s a great guy and all, but he isn’t going anywhere in the primaries. Some of us deal with reality before others apparently. Wishing don’t make it so.
Exactly. I like Hunter too. I wish he had a shot. But he doesn't.
Look folks, I know there are some Freepers who have convinced themselves that things like "national appeal" and "name recognition" are just shibboleths for compromising RINOs (here defined as "anyone who doesn't think Hunter is going to be the next President of these here Yooooo-nited States). But for those of us grounded in reality, these things not only increase a candidate's electability, but they also go a long way towards demonstrating that a candidate has the capacity to make a name for his or herself. Duncan hasn't shown that, on a national level. It takes more to be electable than just voting for defence appropriations.
And doing nothing to promote him or spread the word certainly don’t make it so. If he does become a 1st tier candidate, and there are many indication that will happen, it will because folks you dismiss are doing alot of hard work to make it happen.
That dismissive nonsense is what drives me nuts, by conservatives who should know better.
Just voting for “defense appropriations” includes bare knuckle brawls to keep the libs and RINOS from neutering our military spooks and putting them under the CIA/Homeland Security depts.
It includes stopping Dubai from getting control of port terminals.
It includes preventing the Clinton Admin from gutting Reagan’s missile defense programs.
It includes preventing the libs from closing down Gitmo and giving them a day in US civilian courts.
It includes forcing the Pentagon to buy B2 bombers and C17 cargo planes when they did not “want” them. Only to find out how badly we needed them later.
It includes taking Murtha’s 2006 “cut and run” proposal and forcing to the house floor for a vote where it got trounced.
It includes preventing fighting the libs wet dreams to get Don’t ask Don’t tell lifted.
It includes ramrodding legislation through to prevent any satellite technology sales to China.
It includes 100s of more things that this country would be in dire straights for if Hunter had not been standing and fighting, often alone.
Add to that, he ramrodded the border fence bill through congress in 2006 with NO cosponsors. It is being built as we speak (slowly, mind you). No one else could have done that.
Hunter singlehandedly fought and overturned the Airforce to get them to lift their recent PC policy that did not allow chaplains to mention Jesus Christ.
Hunter led the charge to save the Mount Soledad Cross war memorial from the ACLU. It was about to be removed.
Hunter is currently sponsoring, as he has in the past, the Right to Life bill, HR618, that defines the right to constitutional protection as beginning at concepttion. He has been an unaplogetic pro-life leader since he came to DC.
Hunter is the ONLY one talking about the dangers and malfeasance of China’s communist regime. He’s been sounding the alarm bells for 20 years.
There are scores of other examples you can see if you keyword search Duncan Hunter here on FR.
This is no Ron Paul fringe candidate. This man is a leader. A rock ribbed, conservative Reaganite.
Same Reason no one saw it Reagans way until he forced his way into the national consciousness.
...graduated from Memphis State University 1964; received J.D. degree from Vanderbilt University 1967; admitted to the Tennessee bar in 1967 and commenced the practice of law; assistant U.S. attorney 1969-1972;
Probably got a deferment. There's still a lot I have to learnabout him,but he seems like a good possibility.
Quite frankly, I've known a lot of guys who were in the service who I wouldn't trust to wash my car, much less lead my country.
LOL! Same here. Being retired Army, it's one of the things I look for in a leader.
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