Food is too cheap for the authorities to stomach in China.  Consumers and taxpayers aren't paying enough for their automobiles in the United States, either, according to the U.S. steelworkers Union, international trade "experts" on the Hill and, possibly, President Obama.  It sounds absurd but this is the most recent development in the ongoing, and self-harming, tit-for-tat trade spat between Beijing and Washington.  These political shenanigans are bad for consumers and producers in both countries, and bode ill for global economic recovery.

John Plender in the FT thinks that, "Buy America provisions and bail-outs for bankrupt motor companies are less damag- ing than trade barriers of the kind erected by the Smoot-Hawley Act in the 1930s. Yet the reality, in this financial crisis, is that we have protectionism by the financial backdoor and may soon have it by the front door too."

Don Brunell, president of Washington's Chamber of Commerce, points out the futility of "Buy American" and his argument cannot be over-emphasised: "Protectionism doesn't make sense because manufacturers today are international. They build, process and assemble goods in many nations and sell products around the world."