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Reserving government contracts for domestic companies violates
international law, of course. It seems like just the other day that
Donald Rumsfeld was lecturing Saddam Hussein about the importance of
obeying international law. The World Trade Organization rules forbid
governments to discriminate against the companies of fellow members
when they are looking to spend some money. This is not one of those
high-minded international laws that we agreed to just because we're so
noble and can't really be expected to obey, my dear fellow--we being
the world's only superpower and all that. This particular law is
superpower-friendly. Our country is the one with more of the big
global companies that are most likely to benefit from open markets for
government business. We also have a smaller government share of GDP
than any of our major trading partners. That means we have more to
gain from access to other nations' government business than they have
to gain from access to ours. And therefore we have more to lose if
other nations retaliate by cutting off our access to their government
contracts, which they are understandably threatening to do.
		-- Michael Kinsley
		   http://slate.msn.com/id/2081640/

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