The London Times reports:
The European Union warned the US yesterday against plunging the world into depression by adopting a planned “Buy American” policy, intensifying fears of a trade war.
The EU threatened to retaliate if the US Congress went ahead with sweeping measures in its $800 billion (£554 billion) stimulus plan to restrict spending to American goods and services. . .
Last night Mr Obama gave a strong signal that he would remove the most provocative passages from the Bill.
“I agree that we can’t send a protectionist message,” he said in an interview with Fox TV. “I want to see what kind of language we can work on this issue. I think it would be a mistake, though, at a time when worldwide trade is declining, for us to start sending a message that somehow we’re just looking after ourselves and not concerned with world trade.”
(Via the Corner.)
A rise in protectionism would have been the worst thing that could happen at this juncture. We’ve seen where that goes. President Obama gets credit for playing the grown-up. Sooner would have been better, but this was soon enough to avert a crisis. On the other hand, there seems to be no limit to the fecklessness of Congressional Democrats. Do these fools study history at all?
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