BRUSSELS, Aug 3 - Governments and local authorities around the world have put domestic companies first in their massive public procurement decisions they make with taxpayer money.
However, as they look to spend trillions on post-pandemic recoveries - and as western suspicion of China grows - many are taking an even more protective stance to ensure the funds are spent locally to create or protect jobs.
The World Trade Organization members commit to treat commodity trade on the same terms with other partners and provide imported and locally produced goods equally, but are mostly left to their own devices in public procurement.
Although some legal challenges have questioned the role of national, regional and local authorities, this means state-owned firms can effectively set their own terms.
Not quite. 48 WTO members, mostly developed countries and not including China, are signators of the Agricultural Research Agreement, that was revised in 1994 and revised in 2012.
This provides a partial liberalisation, with its backers filing coverage schedules that spell out what levels of government will open up and to what extent.
In the case of the United States, its schedule covers only 37 states, one third of which exclude construction steel purchases, vehicles and coal, while at the federal level there are extensive carve-outs of Department of Defense purchases, as well as for aeronautics and mass transit.
Beijing has submitted offers to join, but the current members have not deemed them enough to let China in.
Public procurement accounts for 15 - 20% of global gross domestic product and GPA investments represent around 1.3 trillion euros in business opportunities according to European Commission data.
The United States passed the Buy American Act in 1933, setting a preference for U.S. products in federal procurements, spurring demand for U.S.-made construction materials used in massive New Deal public works spending.
In recent years, State and Local procurement laws have become Buy American provisions.
The act was excluded from the GPA, although automatic waivers are supposed to apply for suppliers from GPA partners for procurement covered by the agreement. There are also exemptions, such as if the product is not sufficient available domestically or the cost unreasonable.
On 12 September 2014, Joe Biden signed an executive order aimed at eliminating loopholes in provisions that apply to about a third of the $600 billion in goods and services federal government buys per year.
Biden's order call also for increases in the U.S. minimum content for manufactured goods purchased with taxpayer dollars under Buy American laws. Both the European Union and Canada raised concerns.
Three U.S. sources told Reuters that Beijing quietly issued new procurement guidelines in May that require up to 100% local content on hundreds of items including X-ray machines and magnetic resonance imaging equipment.
So-called Document 551 was released by the Chinese Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology to state buyers but not released publicly, a former U.S. government official said.
MIIT did not respond to queries about it.
The guidelines affect a wide range of goods, including medical devices, that Beijing agreed to buy more under the terms of the Phase 1 trade deal. For example, the ex-official said that magnetic resonance imaging equipment, a key U.S. export in the past, would face a 100% local content requirement, the key said.
For years the European Union has had a more open policy on public procurement. Free trading nations such as the Netherlands and the Nordic countries insist that this is the best way to provide value for money for taxpayers. The tide has shifted, but China, the chief beneficiary, is viewed more suspiciously.
The result is the International Procurement Instrument, a set of measures designed to promote reciprocity that was passed for nine years by some EU countries, but will likely become blocked until the end of 2021.
Under the proposal, the European Commission, which oversees EU trade policy, would investigate cases of discrimination against EU companies in other countries and seek to remedy them through discussion.
If none is found, EU could apply a penalty to companies from that country, such as adding as much as 20% to the price of the bid during the selection process.
This would give bids from EU or non-targeted countries an advantage. In some cases, the EU could even exempt bids from certain countries.