Public Citizen Comments on International Government Procurement Obligations ITA-2017-0006
Public Citizen welcomes the opportunity to submit comments to the U.S. Department of Commerce and the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) on U.S. government procurement obligations in trade agreements. Public Citizen is a nonprofit consumer group with more than 400,000 members. A mission of Public Citizen is to ensure that in this era of globalization, a majority can enjoy economic
security; a clean environment; safe food, medicines and products; access to quality affordable services; and the exercise of democratic decision-making about the matters that affect their lives.
In the context of a creeping expansion of the scope of “trade” agreements negotiated behind closed doors with hundreds of official corporate advisors, Americans across the political spectrum have become aware and upset about the ways in which today’s “trade” pacts conflict with their goals and values. As agreements have expanded far beyond traditional matters such as cutting tariffs and limiting quotas, more Americans have become engaged in demanding a new approach. As a result, the status quo U.S. trade policy model now faces unprecedented crises politically, economically and socially.
Thus, a review of trade-pact procurement terms is timely. These terms constrain how the public can direct our federal and state officials to spend our tax dollars. The rules require firms operating in trade partner countries to be treated like U.S. firms – and foreign goods to be treated as if they were made in America – with respect to many types of government contracts over a set dollar-value threshold, with some limits for U.S. defense agencies and some products. Effectively, these rules offshore our tax dollars rather than investing them to create jobs and innovation at home. As a result, currently “Buy American” now actually means companies and products from 60 countries must be given the same access to U.S. government contracts as U.S. firms and products for all but the lowest-value contracts. And 37 U.S. states are bound to such rules with respect to the 45 signatory countries of the World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreement on Government Procurement (GPA).