Alienating Yet Another Ally

And this time on our northern border and the one nation that we simply cannot afford a trade war with:

Ordered by Congress to "buy American" when spending money from the $787 billion stimulus package, the town of Peru, Ind., stunned its Canadian supplier by rejecting sewage pumps made outside of Toronto. After a Navy official spotted Canadian pipe fittings in a construction project at Camp Pendleton, Calif., they were hauled out of the ground and replaced with American versions. In recent weeks, other Canadian manufacturers doing business with U.S. state and local governments say they have been besieged with requests to sign affidavits pledging that they will only supply materials made in the USA.

Outrage spread in Canada, with the Toronto Star last week bemoaning "a plague of protectionist measures in the U.S." and Canadian companies openly fretting about having to shift jobs to the United States to meet made-in-the-USA requirements. This week, the Canadians fired back. A number of Ontario towns, with a collective population of nearly 500,000, retaliated with measures effectively barring U.S. companies from their municipal contracts — the first shot in a larger campaign that could shut U.S. companies out of billions of dollars worth of Canadian projects.

I thought the Obama administration was supposed to fix all the alleged broken relationships we had with our allies. So far he's belittled Britain, France, Israel and now Canada.

This isn't just an embarrassing gift mishap like with Gordon Brown, this is an issue that can cause long-term damage to our relationship with a crucial trading partner. Sure, it may not resonate in DC but it does in states like the Dakotas, Idaho, Wisconsin, Minnesota and the reeling state of Michigan.

Liberals never, ever consider the ripple effect their policies will generate and the lib we now have in the Oval Office is more oblivious than most. Isolationism breeds hatred that cannot be easily turned. We are not hurting Canada by putting tariffs on Molson but actually affecting their job market and business climate. Those are things not easily forgotten and will fester for as long as the isolationist policies continue.

Obama has done more damage to our standing in the world than Bush could have in four terms.