Hats off to trade

Before September, when the U.S. Army had time to think of things besides terrorism and war, the big military story was the conversion to black berets for all Army personnel. The story was big because, in its haste to acquire 5 million berets, the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) contracted with foreign manufacturers, including those in China – recall the backdrop of the spy-plane incident – and Congress, proud supporter of free trade, was televisionally outraged.

It seemed the Army wanted the berets quickly but only a few medium-sized American firms made the desired headgear and couldn’t come close to meeting the planned deadline, so the DLA sidestepped a buy-American requirement – the Berry Amendment – and went shopping globally. The Army now has hundreds of thousands of Chinese-made berets (valued at $6.5 million), which politically its soldiers cannot wear, and it still needs another couple million that it is supposed to get from somewhere. Three contracts in the United States, equal to a million berets, were canceled because of the companies’ failures to deliver on time.

While looking into the beret supply and its adherence to the Berry Amendment, the General Accounting Office found other military exceptions to buying American – even some domestic producers of berets, for instance, got their materials from foreign sources. Goat hair canvas, a fabric used in military coats and headgear, hasn’t been made in the United States since 1996. And DLA contractors had been using specialty cotton yarn from overseas since ’94. Military medical and surgical equipment used by the military often comes from foreign sources and so do materials that go into military footwear.

The DLA wasn’t doing anything wrong in contracting with sources that used foreign goods – it had the proper waivers. The point is that the foreign-made berets were nothing new and that in a global economy with lowered borders and trading partners in unexpected places, finding that U.S. soldiers have jackets from Jakarta or berets from Belize shouldn’t be such a surprise.

Still, there may be an opportunity here for Maine to get in on that domestic goat hair canvas industry.