Foreign Tech Firms Look to Cash In on Stimulus

A gaggle of foreign businesses are quietly clamoring for a piece of the $787 billion US stimulus package, the Washington Post reports. The bill sets aside billions for technologies pioneered by European and Asian companies, such as clean energy and high-speed transit. Many of those firms have significant US presences, and they’re emphasizing that contracts would lead to US jobs. But they still fear a backlash like the one that scuttled the Dubai ports deal.

“Others may try to use the fact that these companies are based abroad as some sort of gotcha,” says an international business advocate. “But you can’t put American jobs in the clean little baskets that you put them in 50 years ago.” Still, experts say if a foreign company won a stimulus-related contract, while most of the wages would stay in the US, something like 40% of the money could leave the country.