The U.S. trade deficit fell sharply at the end of last year for the wrong reasons — the global recession severely restrained demand. The deficit narrowed 28.7 percent in November, the biggest contraction in 12 years, according to the Commerce Department.

And unfortunately, the stimulus bill now being debated in the Senate could make those numbers look worse.

The steel industry was able to persuade authors of the House version of the bill to include a provision requiring that preferences be given to U.S. steel producers and to uniform makers. Already, the European Union and the Canadians have cried foul. The EU says it will launch a complaint with the World Trade Organization if the clause remains in the final bill.

The idea of buying American sounds good on the surface. Who wouldn't want American companies to benefit? Yet giving preferences to a select few could easily set in motion forces that end up hurting other U.S. companies trying to sell their products abroad. Steel makers are in a slump, and no wonder, given the sorry state of the auto industry and other steel-gobbling businesses. But why should the government extend protection to this industry at the expense of another — say, mining equipment?

"The last time steel tariffs were put in place, it allowed the industry to consolidate and significantly raise prices," said Tim Sullivan, chief executive at Bucyrus International, a maker of mining equipment based in South Milwaukee. "This certainly did not help us compete internationally. . . . Protections and tariffs are never good."

President Barack Obama doesn't need a trade dust-up in his first month in office. And he should be wary of embracing the protectionists in his party who seem not to have learned from history.

As Dartmouth professor Douglas A. Irwin wrote in the New York Times on Sunday, passage of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff in 1930 set off a move toward higher tariffs around the world, dramatically worsening the Great Depression. Irwin also noted that compliance with California's rules to use domestic steel in the rebuilding of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge in the 1990s cost taxpayers about $400 million more on that project alone. The rules stated that domestic producers had to be used unless their bids came in 25 percent higher. The accepted bid was 23 percent higher.

The point of the stimulus package is to put Americans to work, not to reward companies or unions that are adept at lobbying Congress. Stimulus spending on ready-to-go projects can help Americans, but that help will be blunted if the money isn't spent wisely.