A WebmasterWorld thread has discussion around the topics of building links from foreign web sites, in different languages.
For example, if I run a web site that is in English, focused for US users - what happens if I get some links from sites hosted in Israel, with Hebrew anchor text, linking to my English web site?
The obvious answer is that these types of links are not considered spam or low quality, simply because of the site's origin. If a foreign site is linking to yours out of relevance, then it is fine. If you go ahead and buy thousands of links on foreign publisher web sites, then that might lead to other issues.
In fact, when you want to rank well in localized versions of Google, it is recommended to not only publish a localized version of the site using the country's TLD, but also to acquire links from sites sharing the localized view and on the localized TLD.
Would acquiring "foreign" links to your USA English based site help you rank in both Google USA and Google localized? Maybe but it might not be the optimal way to go about your country specific SEO.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
