Occasional reader O. Winfrey of Chicago writes, “A federal customer recently insisted that the Buy American Act be applied to a GSA Schedule transaction.  Does BAA apply and, if not, what’s the harm anyway?”  Products and services sold via the GSA Schedule are NOT bound by the Buy American Act, O.  All Schedule services and products are, instead, covered by the Trade Agreements Act.  This fact is not well-understood by many government customers who routinely add the BAA to a Schedule purchase order.  Unless there are open-market items on that PO, though, the BAA is an extraneous term that can catch your company in a couple of snares.  First, if you accept a PO with the BAA on it, you do technically have to comply with the BAA.  If your product meets the component test for US manufacture, no problem.  The TAA test, though, is NOT component based, but is rather based on substantial transformation.  Don’t sign your company up for complying with something you’re not sure about.  Second, an unsuccessful offeror could protest the award if they discovered that the BAA was applied.  Was the procurement a Schedule transaction when a specifically non-Schedule term was included?  The GAO has a history of sustaining protests where buying agencies add extraneous contract clauses to a Schedule PO.  You could lose your order under such a circumstance.  It is tough to push back, especially at year end, on a customer who insists on including extra terms that conflict with your Schedule contract.  Resist anyway.  Try to get those removed, or at least declared non-applicable.  Above all, be aware of the risks entailed in terms of compliance and lost business that can occur here.