I was also getting the French, but I was listening to myself in two languages.
I also think the administration is looking at those waivers, not in terms of the total number of American jobs, which might have been how the prior administration looked at that, but, in my understanding, especially in terms of critical supply chains and strategic production.
As everyone knows, and as Professor Dufour discussed, the U.S. commitment to the WTO government procurement agreement, which benefits Canada at this time, effectively means that buy American rules function as buy from America and friends' rules. Separate from the executive order, I have to be honest with you that in the public statements accompanying the executive order, there is language that was exactly the same as we saw in an August 2020 policy paper from candidate Joe Biden that the new administration would “work with allies to modernize international trade rules and associated domestic regulations regarding government procurement to make sure that the U.S. and allies can use their own taxpayer dollars to spur investment in their own countries.”
As I said in the op-ed piece I wrote a few months ago, anytime a government says they want to modernize international treaty obligations, that's a nice way of saying they want to revise them, which is a nice way of saying they'd like to break them. I think that means that long-term U.S. participation in the WTO's Agreement on Government Procurement is not a foregone conclusion. If you follow Professor Dufour's logic—I agree 98% with everything she said—that is not necessarily a bad scenario for Canada. It could mean revision of the GPA in a way that permitted more regional collaboration, more localization of production, and more acceptance of the desirability of local special rules for procurement.
I know that members of this committee are very concerned about Canadian access to the U.S. market. I look forward to a discussion of these issues, with everyone hopefully keeping in mind that I can only give a close observer's perspective, not any official perspective on what is happening inside the Beltway.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.