[CTC] Martinez || ‘Buy American’ Laws

[Arthur Stamoulis]

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/01/opinion/buy-american-laws.html

‘Buy American’ Laws
DEC. 1, 2017
Continue reading the main story <https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/01/opinion/buy-american-laws.html#story-continues-1>Share This Pag

To the Editor:

Re “Why ‘Made in America’ Is Stitched Into the Law, but Not the Uniforms <https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/24/us/politics/secret-service-uniforms-mexico-trump-trade.html>” (news article, Nov. 25):

Many readers will be up in arms upon learning that our Secret Service uniforms may be made in countries like Mexico, where human rights continue to be abused. They will be even more concerned upon learning that offshoring government goods is not limited to uniforms.

In the last decade, the Defense Department has spent more than $200 billion in taxpayer money on manufactured goods from other countries.

One of the reasons the United States government looks to other countries for procurement is that trade deals like the North American Free Trade Agreement make it possible to buy goods we need from countries, like Mexico, where workers do not enjoy even the basic right to form free and independent unions.

Waivers in “buy American” laws also provide large loopholes that permit government procurement from other countries. Our taxpayer dollars should be used to provide well-paying jobs here at home.

This is why the fight for fair trade agreements that would close government procurement loopholes and include labor provisions that obligate countries like Mexico to honor and enforce fundamental human rights is so important.

It is also why waivers in “buy American” laws should be eliminated.

ROBERT MARTINEZ JR. 
UPPER MARLBORO, MD.


The writer is international president of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers.

A version of this letter appears in print on December 2, 2017, on Page A22 of the New York edition with the headline: ‘Buy American’ Laws.

Arthur Stamoulis
Citizens Trade Campaign
(202) 494-8826




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