Defense Procurement: DOD Purchases of Foreign-Made Machine Tools

Machine tools are vital to any industrialized nation. They cut, grind, shape, and form materials, including metals, into useful products for home, industry, and defense. For instance, these tools are used to make the planes, tanks, ships, and other heavy equipment used by the military services. Without machine tools the United States could not manufacture these products. Public Law 99-59 1, which provided continuing appropriations for fiscal year 1987, restricted the Defense Department's procurement of foreign made machine tools in 21 classifications. Three more restricted classifications were added in fiscal year 1989. Foreign-made machine tools could be bought, but only if the responsible Secretary of the Army, Navy, or Air Force, on a case-by-case basis, waived the restriction. The responsible Secretary had to find that adequate supplies of the legislatively restricted machine tool being procured were unavailable from U.S. or Canadian sources to meet defense requirements on a timely basis. The restriction on Defense's machine tool procurements was continued in the fiscal year 1988 and 1989 appropriation acts but not in the fiscal year 1990 appropriation act. However, the fiscal year 1989 National Defense Authorization Act also restricted Defense's machine tool procurement for fiscal year 1990 and fiscal year 1991. The restriction provisions in that act, though, differed somewhat from those contained in the appropriation acts. During fiscal years 1987-1989, the Defense Department procured machine tools valued at about $458 million. About $352 million were in the legislatively restricted classifications.