The next Congress should prioritize repealing or significantly reforming numerous Buy American–style laws that force the federal government to purchase American products and services. Although advocates of such measures claim they benefit the US economy by supporting American firms—as is typically the case with protectionism—the reality is quite different. Such laws actually inflict considerable harm by driving up costs (thus increasing federal expenditures or ensuring less bang for the buck), extending project timelines, creating complacency among coddled domestic firms, and inviting retaliatory measures from US trading partners, among other downsides.
A prime example of this dysfunction is the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), which mandates that iron, steel, manufactured products, and construction materials used in many infrastructure projects funded with federal dollars be domestically produced. These requirements, however, reduce the number of possible suppliers, thus increasing the cost and complexity of obtaining needed materials. While the IIJA was ostensibly passed to improve American infrastructure, including such protectionist language directly undermines this goal by making such projects more expensive and time-consuming.
Even national security suffers from such misguided protectionism. The Berry Amendment, for example, requires the Department of Defense to purchase footwear, dinnerware, eating utensils, and numerous other items from domestic suppliers. The result? A handful of firms reap government contracts while the military (and taxpayers) are stuck with higher costs and fewer options—no small matter in the search for comfortable shoes and boots. Arguments that foreign-made forks and footwear threaten national security may be laughable, but the harm (including foot pain) to those tasked with protecting the country certainly isn’t.
Mandating the purchase of American-made products may make sense in limited cases (e.g., procuring certain weapons systems), but these are exceptional. Overall, such protectionist measures are best understood as exercises in rent-seeking that damage the country’s freedom, prosperity, and even security. As such, they should be prime targets for reform by Congress.
