Biden Wants To Make 'Buy American' a Reality
Too often in the past, “Buy American” pledges became a “hollow promise,” president says
President Biden traveled to Mack Trucks’ Lehigh Valley Operations facility, in Macungie, Pa., Wednesday to announce a new “Buy American” commitment, which he assured would be more meaningful than past “Buy American” initiatives which have come before.
“You know, what most people don’t know — no matter how informed they are — most people don’t know that for literally almost a century, there’s been a law on the books in America called the Buy America Act. It’s supposed to make sure that when your government spends your tax dollars in buying goods that they have to be goods that were built, purchased in America,” Biden said. “But the previous administration didn’t take it so seriously — in previous ones, not just the last one. They were quick to say, ‘You know, we have a lot of money to spend. The government is going to buy everything from buildings to aircraft carriers to trucks to whatever it is. But we can’t find an American company that can do it all, so we’re going to have to issue a waiver. We’ll hire the American company, but that American company is going to have a subsidiary overseas where Americans don’t work, where it’s much cheaper, they can make more money, and they’re going to say, “We have to have that as part of the chain of building the product.’
“The result has been tens of billions of dollars didn’t go to jobs and businesses in communities like this one,” he added. “In recent years, ‘Buy American’ has become a hollow promise.”
Biden said that his administration would be doing things differently.
“We put in a Made in America Office to oversee — not in an agency, in the White House itself — to oversee these efforts,” he said.
“Biggest enforcement changes”
Furthermore, Biden said he was announcing the “biggest enforcement changes to the Buy American Act in 70 years.”
Specifically, the change will alter the definition of “substantially all” made in America, the president said.
Before the change, only 55 percent of any given vehicle must have been made in the United States to have met the terms of the Buy American Act.
“To me, 55 percent is not “substantially all;” it’s barely half,” Biden said. “And this is actually a double whammy. First, 55 percent is not high enough. And second, contractors don’t have to tell us the total domestic content of their products, they just have to tell us that they hit the threshold. Nobody checking. Well, they got a new sheriff in town. We’re going to be checking. No, I’m serious. I am deadly earnest.
“Today, I’m directing the Budget Office to issue a rule to raise the amount of domestic content required to be considered Made in America from 55 percent to 75 percent,” he said. “‘Substantially all’ is going to mean substantially all.”
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