From Dallas Federal Reserve President Richard Fischer:
"Let me just be blunt. Protectionism is the crack cocaine of economics. It may provide a high. It's addictive and it leads to economic death"
Editor's note: the provision in question has been alternately referred to as "Buy America" or "Buy American." I started using "Buy America" because Reuters (the source of my initial post on the provision) does. However, it seems "Buy American" is more widely used.
Legendary journalist William Safire has a weekly column in the New York Times Sunday Magazine called, "On Language", in which he explores the origins, meanings, and uses of popular words or phrases. I think the "Buy America"/"Buy American" distinction would be an interesting case. While the essence is the same, does the addition of the 'n' alter the implied scope or meaning in some subtle way? Sadly, I can't answer that.
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I think it does alter the scope of the principle.
Buy America sounds like a really dumbed down version of Keynes asking Americans to help spend the nation out of a recession. It does not specify what to buy, or where to buy it from, although there is a general assumption that it has to benefit the American economy.
Buy American is more exclusive and does limit the range of products to be purchased to those produced in the United States.
One might give a little wiggle room to give the illusion to a general public that does not understand how dangerous protectionist policies are, so that the government can still engage in trade with major, natural resource-rich partners, while the other essentially charts the same path as Smoot-Hawley.
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