Feb. 10--When Thailand announced a "Buy-Thai" campaign years ago, the American embassy raised the issue with Thai authorities, complaining that it distorted trade between Thailand and its partners.

So what should Thai authorities make of the "Buy American" provisions of the huge economic stimulus plan devised by President Barack Obama? Among other things, they bar the purchase of foreign steel for any publicly funded infrastructure project.

These provisions -- which some critics have labelled hypocritical -- have raised fears about rising protectionism as countries do whatever they can to protect their faltering economies. Protectionism was one of the most talked-about issues at the recent World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

In the United Kingdom, British workers have protested angrily about jobs being given to workers from elsewhere in Europe.

Is protectionism going to prevail in the 21st century? If so, how will export-oriented Thailand be affected?

The current world recession is a crisis of historical proportions, but it is not the first downturn. Leading world economies have learned from previous crises that hardship can only be overcome by collaboration, according to Niphon Poaphongsakorn, president of the Thailand Development Research Institute (TDRI).

For instance, during the world economic crisis in the 1980s, five leading economies -- France, Germany, Japan, the UK and the US -- signed the Plaza Accord to depreciate the US dollar against the Japanese yen. The extraordinarily weak yen then created huge trade deficits for Japan's trading partners.

Today, said Dr Niphon, international mechanisms such as the World Trade Organisation (WTO) monitor and counter anti-free trade measures.

"There will not be an extreme degree of protectionism," said Mr Niphon.

He added that "Buy American" is not inherently evil. The provisions are part of an economic stimulus package that American taxpayers -- rather than free-riders -- should benefit from. Other governments, including the Thai government, are doing the same, he said.

"But no government should do anything that establishes NTBs [non-tariff barriers] for other nations," he said.

The term NTB covers all barriers to trade except tariffs. Common NTBs include anti-dumping and countervailing (AD and CVD) duties.

Pimchanok Vonkhorporn, the director of the Multilateral Trade Negotiations Bureau, shares Dr Niphon's opposition to protectionism, though she sees it as "unavoidable" in current times.

"Every country must take internal issues as its first priority," she said.