In today’s Cato Online Forum essay, Gary Hufbauer and Tyler Moran explain why opening up more government procurement projects — especially U.S. procurement projects (and even more especially, state-level procurement projects) — to foreign competition is essential to a successful TTIP deal. Currently, even with the WTO Government Procurement Agreement in place, a treasure trove of U.S. business (in the trillions of dollars, unfortunately) is shielded from competition because it is “government spending” on “sensitive” projects.

Those designations ensure that U.S. taxpayers get smaller bangs for their bucks, while entrenching inefficient firms as advantaged bidders. Moreover, if TTIP fails to open U.S. procurement to more competition from EU firms, then EU negotiators will be less likely to meaningfully open their own markets to U.S. exporters and service providers.

Read it. Provide feedback. And sign up for the Cato TTIP conference on October 12.