At last, some good news for the anti-war lobby. British servicemen will not be forced — in fact will not be allowed — to do America’s dirty work for it. That is my interpretation, at any rate, of Dodd Amendment no. 2660 to the Jumpstart Our Business Strength Act, passed by the US Senate last week by 70 votes to 26. The amendment prohibits companies working on federal and state government contracts to outsource work abroad. The Senate isn’t even bothering to try to dress up its actions as a security issue: this is a shameless piece of protectionism. American unions have cried foul that companies are increasingly cutting costs by outsourcing certain administrative operations, especially to India, and so senators have obliged. From now on, Samuel J. Seersucker III will be able to fill in his driving licence application safe in the knowledge that no foreigner is going to be allowed to get his dirty mitts on it.
Following decades of trade barriers, the world is grudgingly coming round to acknowledge that free trade in goods is of huge benefit to us all, even if it does mean that the odd smokestack factory in Milwaukee is going to have to close down and the toothless hicks who work within will have to haul their trailers to the next state and retrain for something else.
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