The President’s jobs bill provides over $100 billion for infrastructure like schools and roads. It also requires that all the steel, iron and manufactured goods used come from American firms.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
“It seems to be a reflexive protectionism,” said Roy Norton, Canada’s consul general for Ohio, Michigan, Indiana and Kentucky. “We understand the impulses.”
Canada fought against buy-American language in the 2009 stimulus bill and ultimately won an exemption. Now Canada’s leaders are urging Washington not to make the same mistake in this bill.
“We were surprised to see it all over again,” Norton said in an interview in Cleveland Friday.
He said it hurts the Midwest too. He points to US firms that could not bid on projects in 2009 because they sourced components from Canada.