President Obama might be softening his stance on the "Buy American" provisions, according to the London Times and several U.S. newspapers. The EU threatened to retaliate if the U.S. Congress approved the provisions. Obama said on Fox News:

I agree that we can’t send a protectionist message. I want to see what kind of language we can work on this issue. I think it would be a mistake, though, at a time when worldwide trade is declining, for us to start sending a message that somehow we’re just looking after ourselves and not concerned with world trade.

Meanwhile, a new report by Gary Hufbauer and Jeffrey Schott of the Peterson Institute for International Economics finds:

"Buy American" provisions under consideration in Congress as part of a huge economic stimulus bill could create only 1,000 new steel industry jobs and might cost as many as 65,000 across a number of sectors..."The negative job impact of foreign retaliation against Buy American provisions could easily outweigh the positive effect of the measures on jobs in the U.S. iron and steel sector and other industries," Gary Hufbauer and Jeffrey Schott, senior fellows at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, said in the report.