Biden’s address is certain to renew worries among Canadian companies of being further disadvantaged in the massive U.S. procurement market
U.S. President Joe Biden promised to further tighten Buy American rules as he sought to rally a bipartisan voting coalition in Congress and set up an expected re-election bid in Tuesday’s State of the Union address.
Mr. Biden lamented that past administrations of both parties have “fought to get around” Buy American requirements. “Not anymore,” he said. The President named lumber, glass, drywall and fibre optic cable, as well as materials used in roads and bridges, as some of the things that would now have to be made in the U.S.
He highlighted areas in which some Republican legislators in the last Congress voted with the Democrats, including on infrastructure spending, arming Ukraine against Russia’s invasion, increasing semiconductor manufacturing in the U.S. and enshrining same-sex marriage in law. A turn towards bread-and-butter issues had been the President’s intended focus for the speech, meant to build momentum towards a few policy victories in the second half of his term. Mr. Biden is also widely expected to formally announce in the coming weeks that he will run again in 2024.
On the first, the President walked a tightrope between calling for police accountability while also reiterating previous promises to crack down on violent crime. “We all want the same thing: neighbourhoods free of violence, law enforcement who earn the community’s trust, our children to come home safely. Equal protection under the law; that’s the covenant we have with each other in America,” he said.
The President has already made the rules more stringent, moving to hike the requirement for U.S.-made content in federal government procurement from 55 per cent to 75 per cent by 2029. Canada may be able to escape some of this economic punishment because, unlike China, it is party to a World Trade Organization agreement on procurement, which mostly exempts participants from such protectionist measures.
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