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| Jan/Feb 2010 |
| Heard & Overheard |
US/Canada Trade Problems: Excellent Relations Between Canadian and US Armed Forces
The Armed Forces of Canada and the United States have worked, trained together and supported each other in the most challenging military operations for almost a 100 years, e.g., WWI and II, Korea, Gulf, Bosnia, Serbia, Afghanistan, etc.
Entire units and individuals of the Canadian Forces (CF) and US are always on exchange or training with military units, schools and facilities of the other in war and in peace.
One noteworthy example in recent years is the present CF Chief of Defense Staff, General Walter Natynczyk, who was Deputy Commanding General of US III Corps, Fort Hood, Texas and who deployed to Baghdad, Iraq with those troops in 2004.
Countless examples can be given. In Afghanistan, since 2002 for example, the CF contingent, most recently a brigade group of about 3,000 troops commanded by a CF Brigadier General, has been fighting the Taliban in southern Kandahar alongside and in full cooperation with US troops (e.g., adjacent to a USMC Brigade) as part of NATO ISAF operations. Recently, the CF Brigade Group has been expanded to include two battalions of US troops under its direct command. This CF Brigade Group is ultimately under the command of US General Stanley McChrystal. Another 3,000 CF troops are at Fort Irwin, California on pre-deployment training.
The US and CF work seamlessly and are dedicated to each other without any material issue or restriction whatsoever. The safety of the troops and success of the mission of both the CF and US Forces is the objective and there is never any material question from either side to take the easy way and not to share each other’s weapons, supplies, equipment, etc., as needed and no question would ever arise that because any of such are US or Canadian made, that the other would decline use, support or sharing of such. Also, if there is risk of loss of material or danger to troops, neither side would decline engaging the enemy in the hope of keeping its troops away from battle or saving money or equipment.
In passing, there are arrangements between US and CF that if troops, planes or ships run out of supplies, fuel, etc., and require large quantities that such is provided notwithstanding the location of product manufacture and that after the engagement is over, the user Forces repay the donor Forces based on accounting protocols.
And yet, across the ocean in the United States, there recently has developed worrisome new US federal doctrine which is quite a contrast. Notwithstanding the Canada/US Free Trade Agreement, which provides for trade between Canada and the United States of goods and services and other protocols (in passing, Canada and the US are each other’s largest trading partners), the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 requires that ‘buy American’ provisions be implemented.
“More than a half-dozen times since taking office, President Barack Obama has implored recession-weary nations not to build walls around their economies. From Ottawa and London to Prague, Ankara and back home again, the U.S. President’s message has been consistent: protectionism “hurts us all in the end.”1
Notwithstanding what President Obama said, his warning did not reach United States Marine Corps Camp Pendleton Base in California where in May 2009 a contractor installing a sewage line, ripped a section of Canadian-made pipe out of the ground complaining it did not meet new ‘Buy America’ rules. They exhumed the product and it and the remaining pipes were disposed of and replaced with an identical product. The only problem was that it was ‘Made in Canada,’which was ironic for all the cooperation and risk shared by the USMC with the CF in Afghanistan. The offending plastic pipe was not even covered by any foreign content restrictions – “This is protectionism run amuck. What happened at Camp Pendleton is an insidious consequence of the strict buy American provisions in Obama’s administration’s $800 billion US stimulus package, Canadian manufacturers and government officials warn. The dire predictions about Buy American are coming true. From pipes and water pumps to steel beams and office furniture, a wide range of Canadian manufacturers are suddenly finding themselves shut out of traditional markets south of the border”2, according to industry and government officials. The language and intent of the stimulus bill is also finding its way into other US spending bills, potentially putting tens of billions of dollars worth of business out of reach and as the Camp Pendleton case demonstrated, even when there are no restrictions on foreign content, contractors and suppliers are choosing to play it safe by buying domestically.
“The $787-billion U.S. economic stimulus bill south of the border requires that only U.S.-manufactured goods be used in state and municipal infrastructure projects bought with the funding. The (Canadian) federal government has been hoping the Obama administration would make an exception for Canadian goods in exchange for a guarantee that city and provincial bids in Canada would be open to U.S. firms. Gary Doer, Canada’s new ambassador to the U.S., discussed the policies with President Barack Obama in a meeting Wednesday, but momentum has yet to be seen.”3
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“It is understandable that countries are trying to keep and create jobs, so protectionist measures may look tempting. The truth is that protectionism will only hurt both countries.”4
‘Buy American’ rules hurt US businesses, too, because they are often US global firms that source raw materials elsewhere and sell huge amounts of products, aircraft and so on, elsewhere. The CF, for instance, has purchased new transport planes and helicopters from Boeing in the US, the cost of which is hundreds of millions of dollars, and of course, Canada could seek equally good products from manufacturers in other countries. “What is not generally appreciated is that global trade has benefited the United States in many ways. The defense and aerospace industries have been among the nation’s steadiest producers of jobs and export revenues. These industries generate the largest trade surplus of any U.S. manufacturing sector. They are a source of economic strength that are still showing modest growth at a time when many other industries have seen dramatic downturns.”5
Recently, pipe fittings in Sacramento, California were ripped from the ground because they were stamped ‘made in Canada’ and an official of the City of Sacramento where the parts were being fitted into a public water-system, told the Canadian manufacturer that its product was no longer acceptable because it was not made in the United States. Anything already in the ground will have to be ripped back up at the Canadian company’s expense and disposed of.
A further example in Afghanistan in contrast to the ‘Buy America’ policy: At a meeting of the NATO Senior General Staff right after intense fighting in the Panjway District during operation Medusa involving engagements by CF and Taliban, in which CF were left relatively unsupported by NATO troops, and in this case long before recent US surge forces arrived, CF General R.J. Hillier, (subsequently Chief of the Defence Staff), who then was involved in the Afghan campaign said, “Canada feels like we have been abandoned by our allies in the Kandahar Province fight,” and that at these meetings … “nothing much changed so far as our NATO allies except with one very significant exception. The exception, by its striking loneliness, was the US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Peter Pace, who immediately spoke up and said, ‘The United States of America will never see our friend and ally, Canada, on its own.’ Resources in every form started flowing from Americans the next day.”6
One recalls a reciprocal support by the CF in my recent article, “Operation Unison – Canada’s Help with Katrina” – 2005, which gesture of support for the victims of Katrina is estimated to have cost the Canadian Government $20 Million in which huge quantities of supplies were delivered to residents of New Orleans by the CF navy ships; supplies, of course, which probably were not made in the United States and were most likely made in Canada – how quickly the promoters of the ‘Buy American’ policy have forgotten!
1 The Globe and Mail, May 11, 2009, Pg. B1.
2 The Globe and Mail, May 11 2009, Pg. B1.
3 Ottawa Citizen, November 7, 2009 - Saturday, Early Edition, Pg. A4.
4 Windsor Star, June 12, 2009 - Friday, Final Edition, Pg. A8.
5 National Defense, March 2008, “Buy American Restrictions: Bad for Jobs, Bad for Business”, Lawrence P. Farrell, Jr.
6 A Soldier First, General Rick Hillier, page 476. |
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