In two earlier posts on this blog, I described how President Trump said he had required the use of American steel in the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines, while the reality seemed to be only an interagency consultation that would “develop a plan” on the issue and had some important qualifiers (only “to the maximum extent possible and to the extent permitted by law”). Now Politico is reporting that any such requirement will not apply to Keystone:
The Keystone XL Pipeline will not be subject to President Donald Trump’s executive order requiring infrastructure projects to be built with American steel, a White House spokeswoman said today.
Trump signed the order calling for the Commerce Department to develop a plan for U.S. steel to be used in “all new pipelines, as well as retrofitted, repaired or expanded pipelines” inside the U.S. projects “to the maximum extent possible.”
By the White House’s judgment, that description would not include Keystone XL, which developer TransCanada first proposed in 2008.
“The Keystone XL Pipeline is currently in the process of being constructed, so it does not count as a new, retrofitted, repaired or expanded pipeline,” the White House spokeswoman said.
Assuming this report holds up (I’d like to hear it from additional White House sources), it is a small victory for free trade. There is still a great deal of uncertainty on the direction of U.S. trade policy right now, but at least for the moment I have a bit of hope. Cooler heads seem to have prevailed on this one issue. Perhaps they will have similar success on other issues.
