Remember when Donald Trump’s Buy American plan was deemed racist?
Our history shows there’s a dark side to ‘Buy American’
“We will follow two simple rules,†President Trump promised in his inaugural address. “Buy American and hire American.â€
Trump’s program might sound appealing. But the Buy American exhortation follows a long history of similar campaigns steeped in racism, especially against Asians and Asian Americans, that have had real, destructive consequences. It’s not that the Buy American call is racist in itself — there’s nothing wrong with seeking to reinvest our dollars back in good local jobs. The problem lies in the way in which it frames the issues.
That’s the Washington Post, just one of many news outlets calling the plan raaaaacist, mean, isolationist, and many more mean words. Now, though?
Biden set to sign ‘Made in America’ executive order
President Joe Biden is set to sign a “Made in America” executive order Monday, fulfilling a long-time campaign promise to increase the amount of federal spending that goes to American companies.
The announcement comes at a time when the government is set to spend expansively on efforts to defeat COVID-19, and after a period during which vulnerabilities in the U.S. supply chain were exposed as state and local governments resorted to foreign manufacturers to obtain desperately-needed personal protective equipment.
The federal government spends about $600 billion on contracting per year, and there are already rules in place governing how taxpayer dollars can be spent, how much foreign products can be purchased, and how many foreign components can be brought to the U.S. and assembled here. However, waivers and loopholes allow even more foreign product to be purchased than the rules state.
Biden’s executive order will aim to close those loopholes and cut down on the waivers, as well as order an increase in domestic content. It will also redefine what can count as domestic content, create a public website so U.S. companies can more easily see government contract business and determine whether they could make a more competitive bid for it.
I have nothing against a buy American plan, even from Joe (though, the devil is always in the details, right? You never know with a nutty leftist), but, the difference between the reception for Joe’s plan and Trump’s is astounding. The Washington Post isn’t complaining now. Nor are any of the usual suspects. Even the Auto Workers Union was called racist when they called for buying American.
I’m looking forward to all the double standards over the next four years.
President Joe Biden’s 60-day moratorium on new oil and natural gas leases and drilling permits is prompting widespread concerns in New Mexico, where spending on education and other public programs hinges on the industry’s success.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has filed a lawsuit against President Joe Biden’s administration for what he says is an “unlawful†executive order that halts deportations of illegal aliens.
Getting Americans masked up is a top priority for the Biden Administration.
House Democrats have renewed their long-stalled demand for Donald Trump’s federal tax records, but the Biden administration has not decided whether it will drop its predecessor’s objections and release the Treasury Department records to investigators, Justice Department attorneys told a federal judge Friday.
If one wanted a basic rule of thumb for dealing with the climate crisis, it would be: stop burning things. Human beings have made use of combustion for a very long time, ever since the first campfires cooked the first animals for dinner, allowing our brains to get larger. Now those large brains have come to understand that burning stuff is destroying the stable climate on which civilization depends.
(NM) President Biden provided a grim outlook about the country’s ability to combat the coronavirus pandemic Friday while calling on Congress to move forward with additional stimulus relief measures.
