Commutes in the Washington, DC area—already among the country’s worst—became even more frustrating this week when the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) announced it was pulling roughly 60 percent of its subway cars from service. Instead of trains running every few minutes during the peak of rush hour, most lines will have service only twice per hour. Suffice to say, lengthy waits inside a subway station (“Metro station” in the local parlance) isn’t time well spent.

The service slowdown comes after inspections of subway cars following a recent derailment uncovered defects in the wheel and axle assembly. Delays are slated to last the remainder of the week, and some observers fear that ultimately resolving the issue could take years.

Overlooked in this whole mess, however, is that WMATA didn’t just buy apparently defective railcars but paid artificially inflated prices for them. Thanks to the use of federal funding, their purchase was subject to Buy American laws requiring at least 60 percent (since raised to 70 percent) of the railcar’s components to be U.S.-manufactured and that its final assembly take place domestically. Which is how it came to be that railcars sold by Japanese company Kawasaki were assembled in Lincoln, Nebraska.

Rather than being built in the location and with the materials deemed most efficient by the market, the production of railcars has been instead partly determined by the whims and desires of politicians spending other people’s money. That means higher costs and wasted dollars. According to the American Action Forum, had WMATA been able to purchase subway cars at the average cost paid by 14 foreign cities in various advanced economies for their own subway systems, the savings would have amounted to $441 million.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, WMATA is attempting to avoid Buy American requirements for its next major purchase of rolling stock (unfortunately, some of the savings will be undone through a requirement that 8 percent of the contract’s value remain in the mid-Atlantic region).

It’s just another sign that these laws shouldn’t exist in the first place. Besides frittering away taxpayer dollars and promoting self-impoverishment, Buy American requirements have other harmful effects such as reducing U.S. exports. Other countries can’t purchase U.S. products if Americans don’t purchase theirs—that’s what trade and mutual exchange are all about. Furthermore, such measures invite U.S. trading partners to impose similar restrictions, both to their own detriment and ours. 

If federal legislators are serious about improving the country’s infrastructure and truly “building back better” then the repeal of protectionist measures such as Buy American requirements would be an excellent place to start.