President Joe Biden delivers the State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress at the U.S. Capitol, Tuesday, Feb. 7, 2023, in Washington. Vice President Kamala Harris and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy applaud.Patrick Semansky/The Associated Press
U.S. President Joe Biden promised to further tighten Buy American rules as he sought to rally a bipartisan voting coalition in Congress and set up an expected re-election bid in Tuesday’s State of the Union address.
The move is certain to renew worries among Canadian companies of being further disadvantaged in the massive U.S. procurement market, even as such persistent protectionism represents one of the few areas of potential agreement between Mr. Biden’s Democrats and his Republican opposition.
“Tonight, I’m also announcing new standards to require all construction materials used in federal infrastructure projects to be made in America,” the President vowed before a standing ovation in front of the joint session of Congress.
Mr. Biden lamented that past administrations of both parties have “fought to get around” Buy American requirements. “Not anymore,” he said. The President named lumber, glass, drywall and fibre optic cable, as well as materials used in roads and bridges, as some of the things that would now have to be made in the U.S.
The pledge was part of a concerted push by Mr. Biden to peel away Republican support in Congress as he aims to salvage some of his agenda after narrowly losing control of the House of Representatives in last autumn’s midterm elections.
The President opened his speech by congratulating newly-minted Republican Speaker Kevin McCarthy, and ribbing him on his past obstructionism. “I don’t want to ruin your reputation, but I look forward to working with you,” Mr. Biden said.
He highlighted areas in which some Republican legislators in the last Congress voted with the Democrats, including on infrastructure spending, arming Ukraine against Russia’s invasion, increasing semiconductor manufacturing in the U.S. and enshrining same-sex marriage in law.
And he exhorted his political opponents to join him on tackling a wide range of policy priorities, from reforming the immigration system and fighting climate change to cracking down on profiteering companies and hiking taxes on billionaires.
“Fighting for the sake of fighting, power for the sake of power, conflict for the sake of conflict, gets us nowhere,” Mr. Biden said.
A turn towards bread-and-butter issues had been the President’s intended focus for the speech, meant to build momentum towards a few policy victories in the second half of his term. Mr. Biden is also widely expected to formally announce in the coming weeks that he will run again in 2024.
On at least eight occasions – addressing expansion of health care coverage, banning assault weapons and universal pre-kindergarten, among other policies – Mr. Biden repeated the refrain “let’s finish the job,” in what could be a campaign slogan.
Events, however, have intervened in recent days to highlight fraught foreign and domestic policy files that the President must tackle. First, Memphis police beat to death Tyre Nichols. Then, a Chinese spy balloon floated across Canada and the U.S. for several days before Mr. Biden had it shot down.
On the first, the President walked a tightrope between calling for police accountability while also reiterating previous promises to crack down on violent crime. “We all want the same thing: neighbourhoods free of violence, law enforcement who earn the community’s trust, our children to come home safely. Equal protection under the law; that’s the covenant we have with each other in America,” he said.
On the second, he vowed to “act to protect our country” and took an unusually personal shot at China’s President in highlighting the strength of democratic countries compared to authoritarian ones. “Name me a world leader who would change places with Xi Jinping,” Mr. Biden shouted. “Name me one.”
The promise of a stronger Buy American regime is also in large part aimed at China. But it could sideswipe Canada and other U.S. allies as well, even as full details of Mr. Biden’s plans remained unclear.
The President has already made the rules more stringent, moving to hike the requirement for U.S.-made content in federal government procurement from 55 per cent to 75 per cent by 2029. Canada may be able to escape some of this economic punishment because, unlike China, it is party to a World Trade Organization agreement on procurement, which mostly exempts participants from such protectionist measures.
However, state and local contracts, which are often funded with federal money, are exempt from the WTO rules, which could cause headaches for Canada. Canadian companies supplying the U.S. market have also previously fretted about a chilling effect, with American businesses steering clear of all foreign suppliers just to be safe.
Mr. Biden said it was “totally consistent with international trade rules to Buy American,” but did not specify what exactly this would mean for major U.S. trading partners.
He did, however, make one other oblique Canadian reference. In pressing Congress to clamp down on profiteering drug companies and cap the notoriously high price of insulin in the U.S., Mr. Biden ad-libbed an aside about Frederick Banting, the compound’s discoverer.
“Insulin’s been around for over 100 years,” Mr. Biden said. “The guy who invented it didn’t even patent it because he wanted it to be available for everyone.”