'Buy America' Measure Retained in Defence Bill

Financial Times ^ | September 26, 2003 | Peter Spiegel in London and Edward Alden in Washington

[GiovannaNicoletta]

The Pentagon has dropped its opposition to controversial legislation that would direct the US to shun overseas suppliers in purchasing parts for essential weapons systems.

The bill, which had faced a threatened veto from the White House, was watered down in negotiations between Duncan Hunter, the House armed services committee chairman, and Paul Wolfowitz (pictured), deputy defence secretary. In a "discussion draft" dated September 10 obtained by the Financial Times, the Pentagon is given wider authority to disregard the provision, permitting the defence secretary to grant waivers "in the interest of national defence".

But the new language would still force the Pentagon to issue the waivers on a product by product basis, which could cause significant delays.

"We would be sending a very strong signal to our trading partners that we were trying to eliminate international suppliers from our defence programmes," said Jon Etherton of the Aerospace Industries Association, which represents defence suppliers. He said that, in practice, such waivers were rarely issued.

The "Buy America" measure, which was inserted into the annual defence authorisation bill by Mr Hunter, has been watched intensely by arms manufacturers in both the US and abroad who fear that huge extra costs may be imposed.

The failure to strip the entire measure from the bill has angered John Warner, chairman of the Senate armed services panel, who this week wrote to cabinet officials warning it would harm US allies that had assisted in Iraq and Afghanistan, a clear reference to the UK. He said he feared "trade retaliation" if the measure were passed by Congress, which could "jeopardise our $50bn annual trade surplus in aerospace products".

Andy Card, White House chief of staff, headed a meeting on Friday of top administration officials to consider the issue.

[Young Rhino]

If the Defense Department hadn't been procuring supplies from the cheese-eating surrender monkeys and other enemies of the U.S., I doubt this legislation would have the impetus that exists.