Demystifying Data

Excerpts from Remarks Prepared for Delivery for NAM President and CEO Jay Timmons
NAM Board of Directors Meeting, Naples, Florida

…There’s a new reality in Washington and in America. You could go as far to call it a “new world order.”

And a new reality requires a new strategy. That’s what I want to lay out for you today: a plan for success. You could call this plan Make America Great for Manufacturing Again.

Leading up to the inauguration and in the past month since, I have heard from so many of you.

To be honest, it’s been quite divergent. Some of you are thrilled. Some of you are reserved. Some of you are downright panicked.

I know that you’re putting investment decisions on hold because you don’t have the confidence yet that those 2017 tax reforms the NAM shaped will be renewed.

I’ve heard your frustration about the regulatory onslaught that rained down…and your questions about how fast can we really move to make changes in a way that won’t get delayed by litigation?

I’ve heard your concerns about the workforce. Will we get the immigration policy that we deserve—and the support for the workforce programs that we need?

I know that you’re anxious for permitting reforms—so that paperwork and red tape aren’t slowing you down even more.

And, I can tell you, on the weekend of February 1 when the 25% tariffs were announced on Canada and Mexico, I took more calls, answered more emails than I ever have in this job.

Tariffs… tariffs are, simply put, part of our new reality. The President has made it very clear he will impose them.

So what does that mean for us?

I’d suggest that our message—our unified message—needs to be this: there must be a commonsense, coordinated and comprehensive manufacturing strategy from our elected and appointed officials. … one that aims to reduce the cost of doing business in America and incentivizes investment, job creation, wage growth and production here at home. I want to repeat: a comprehensive manufacturing strategy.

We all know we are a capital-intensive industry. We plan months, years, decades in advance. Uncertainty is the silent killer of manufacturing investment.

Since tariffs are on the table, … tax reform, permitting reform, and more, simply cannot be delayed.

And I’ll go a step further: those objectives need to be even more aggressive.

Our job at the NAM is to help the administration and Congress understand that all of these policies and more are intertwined and interconnected. We are telling the story about tariff impacts on manufacturing. Since they are intent on applying them…then they need a plan to offset those cost pressures somewhere else.

So, let’s talk about that comprehensive manufacturing strategy. A strategy, unlike a wish list, is focused on how to get us where we want to go within a given reality.

And I want to lay out some thoughts—and then I want to hear from you…your reactions, your questions. That will happen later on during this session after we bring the External Affairs team on stage.

Taxes

Let’s start with taxes. As I was saying on the Competing to Win Tour, we have to do this now. Every day we wait means jobs and opportunity lost.

But here’s the good news. We are the association that can bring all the key players together.

We did it in 2017. We did it again last month, as Kathy mentioned, when we brought together House Ways and Means Committee Chair Jason Smith and Senate Finance Committee Chair Mike Crapo, along with the Speaker of the House and the House Majority Leader, to release the NAM’s tax study with EY at the U.S. Capitol.

Those of you who know Capitol Hill know that it’s next to impossible to get the chairs of the House and Senate tax-writing committees to be in the same room, much less share a stage. That’s the power of your NAM.

That study we released made the stakes clear.

• Failing to renew the 2017 tax reforms will cost America 6 million jobs, …
• ….including more than 1.1 million manufacturing jobs.
• The economy would suffer a $1.1 trillion hit.

And those numbers do not take into consideration any new price pressures from tariffs.

That’s not just economic data. That’s the difference between a worker getting a raise or losing a job, between a family affording a home or struggling to get by, between a school getting new resources or facing budget cuts.

In fact, the study specifically looked at worker wages—and found that more than $500 billion in worker pay is at risk. And that’s why the study is a powerful advocacy tool.

We have had a significant number of Republican Congressmen and Senators citing the data from our study. And I’ve had some off-the-record conversations with Democrats who want our help in doing better in this area.

But let’s go a step further. If the overarching goal is to increase production in the U.S., then let’s look at additional incentives that make manufacturing in America even more competitive.

President Trump has said he wants to get the corporate rate as low as 15%—which we suggested to him back in 2016 when I met with him at Trump Tower. He was excited about that suggestion then and embraced that goal when we helped his first White House team draft the bill.

So, we’re helping him get there now. And since they’ve put additional U.S. production incentives on the table, we will do everything in our power to make sure they work to every manufacturer’s advantage—and don’t come at the expense of our other priorities.

We are working to encourage Congress to think creatively so that both large corporations and pass-throughs get the full benefit of renewing expired provisions, like R&D expensing and interest deductibility as well as any new incentives.

That’s one way to get to a more commonsense, cohesive strategy.

Regulations

But of course, regulations are also part of the picture. Right now, manufacturers are spending $350 billion each and every year just to comply with federal regulations.

That’s about $50,000 per employee, per year at small manufacturers—according to our NAM study. That’s unsustainable.

We need more regulatory clarity and consistency. And we’re helping the administration achieve that objective.

They have already acted on many of the regulatory items on the roadmap we sent them during the transition. Like lifting the LNG export ban. That was a big Day One win for us. … Like rescinding problematic ESG standards at the SEC… That was another one.

These are good first steps. We need more of it—and the urgency grows by the day.

And when activist groups inevitably try to block the administration, the NAM Legal Center will be in court defending our progress.

Permitting and Energy

Perhaps nowhere is regulatory and permitting urgency greater than in the energy sector.

From pipelines to renewable energy … from critical mineral mines to hydroelectric and nuclear power plants … from interstate transmission lines to battery manufacturing and semiconductor fabs, … we are seeing opportunities for energy dominance fade in the face of a permitting process that takes 80 percent longer than other major, developed nations. Eighty. Percent. Longer. That is unacceptable.

Our view is that America should be the undisputed leader in energy production and innovation. The President agrees—he just established a new National Energy Dominance Council, whose mission is filled with NAM priorities.

Give us the tools, and manufacturers will make it happen.

Workforce

Of course, you can have the right tax policy, smarter regulation, faster permitting, and abundant energy, but without people, nothing gets done. We are, and always will be, a people driven industry, even as we lead at the cutting edge of AI.

Over the past year, we have averaged 500,000 open manufacturing jobs in America—good-paying, life-changing careers. And by the year 2033, we face a shortfall of 1.9 million manufacturing workers.\

That’s according to research from the NAM’s workforce and education affiliate, the Manufacturing Institute. They produced that study in partnership with Deloitte.

We’ve heard from all of you what works: apprenticeships, hands-on training, public-private partnerships—and making sure people can see the reality of manufacturing careers that make a difference for families, for communities and for our country.

And as Nick Pinchuk would remind us—those careers reward people with a sense of dignity and pride. That’s why manufacturers are increasingly turning to the Manufacturing Institute for workforce solutions.

On top of workforce programs and incentives, we also need to modernize our immigration policies. The President has focused on border security. Okay, but we have to go further, because without a functioning legal immigration system, one that is based on the economic needs of our nation, we will not reach our full potential or have a talent pool big enough to do the work ahead.

Trade

Uncertainty in workforce planning … it’s just as damaging as uncertainty in tax, regulatory, energy, permitting or trade policy.

Which brings us back to where we started: trade and tariffs….

Back in 2019, everyone who sat in the seats of this board of directors and our entire organization put our credibility on the line to support congressional passage of the USMCA at the request of the president and his administration. So it seems quite logical that we will defend the USMCA.

After all, it was one of President Trump’s signature achievements from his first term. We need to defend it because it prioritized manufacturing in the United States, it secured supply chains, and it strengthened our industry.

It pivoted production away from China to the North American continent … to the U.S. and our closest allies … and away from one of our fiercest competitors.

But we need more:

We need a trade policy that respects the manufacturing investments that we’ve made under the rules we were given.

Since the new world order involves tariffs, they need to start low, giving manufacturers in the United States time to adjust their investment and expansion strategies accordingly.

We are encouraging the administration to think about tariffs in the context of that comprehensive manufacturing strategy that I outlined…. A longer runway that incentivizes, … rather than penalizes … manufacturers… To prioritize leveling the playing field against market distortions like dumping, subsidization and the theft of intellectual property.

And, of course, any tariff policy should also have clear and reliable exclusions. And why is that?

Because of critical minerals and other industrial inputs, like chemicals and energy products, that simply cannot be sourced in the U.S. They need to be tariff-free—so supply chains are not disrupted and manufacturers are not penalized for inputs that simply do not exist domestically.

The administration has to recognize there could be scarcity and shortages until we get to the point where we produce more here.

For example, two-thirds of the primary aluminum we need today comes from Canada. So we’ll need a policy that ensures manufacturers who need that aluminum aren’t sidelined, a policy that prioritizes the needs of American manufacturing and your access to the inputs you need.

And here’s another imperative: we need more trade agreements that expand market access and that ensure fair competition—so that manufacturers in the U.S. can compete on a level playing field.

So again, maybe I’m sounding a little repetitious. But here’s the bottom line: A commonsense, comprehensive manufacturing strategy to align our trade policy with tax, regulatory, energy and workforce initiatives—so that manufacturers can plan, grow and succeed. Anything else creates a piecemeal approach that generates uncertainty … and uncertainty kills investment.

***

NAM Leadership

Now if you’re like a lot of our members, you probably have whiplash, going from one agenda in the White House to another … back to the other … over the past eight-plus years.

But the one thing that you can count on is this: the National Association of Manufacturers will always respond in the appropriate manner.

All of our work, as you well know, is based on policy, not on politics, not on personality and not on process. That imperative has not changed. And it will not change.

Our greatest asset is that virtually every politician, left or right, wants to see manufacturing succeed.

That’s because manufacturing’s success is about more than balance sheets and profits. These elected officials know it’s about individual families in their communities.

It’s about when that member of Congress walks down the street and sees that a new school has been built because of the economic might that a manufacturing facility has pumped into a town.

It’s what Kathy and I saw in Ohio as we kicked off this year’s Competing to Win Tour at Armstrong World Industries with the State of Manufacturing Address.

We visited Ohio, Texas, Alabama and Florida last week, and everywhere we went we were energized by what manufacturers are doing—from Freeport LNG … to Toyota … to Milo’s Tea … to Port Miami.

By the way, thank you, Tricia Wallwork, for the warm welcome outside Birmingham. Your passion and the company culture are so evident. And your tea, well, as I told you, it tastes just like my grandmother used to make.

And Chris Nielsen, you have a stellar team just outside Huntsville. Thank you, Toyota, for the incredible tour.

Thank you also to everyone who has already brought your story to Washington, DC, this year though powerful testimony before Congress…

Karl Hutter and Courtney Silver …. Barbara Humpton from Siemens … and Noah Hanners from Nucor.

And to all the board members whose companies were represented during our tax event with House leadership that Kathy recognized already … thank you again!

As members of the board, as leaders of the manufacturing ecosystem, you all have the power to use your voice to ensure that leaders on both sides of the aisle, in Congress, the White House and the agencies, make the right decisions.

…

That’s our job at the NAM … You invest in us to help you succeed, to help the industry succeed, to help our country succeed. Because when manufacturing wins, America wins.

And your investment matters even more. Because we live in a new reality, a new world order.

***

The Choice Before Us

More than three decades ago, the fall of the Berlin Wall harkened not only the collapse of an empire but the triumph of an idea. It was the vindication of freedom over oppression, of open markets over command economies, of democracy over dictatorship.

President Reagan had long called America the “last best hope of man on Earth,” and in that moment, history affirmed his words. The Soviet Union collapsed, and President George H.W. Bush spoke then of a “new world order,” a world where American leadership would usher in stability, prosperity, and global cooperation.

But the tides of history are restless.

Over the past three decades, new forces have emerged, reshaping the global order. China, once an economic understudy, now seeks to write its own rules for trade, technology, and security.

Russia, though diminished, wields disruption as a weapon, seeking relevance through aggression—and targeting democracy, not only in Ukraine but beyond.

And across the Middle East, regional actors assert themselves, untethered from the frameworks of the past.

The world is no longer defined by a single guiding force but by a contest of ambition, where nations pursue their own paths, and power is measured in economic strength as much as in military might.

So we stand at yet another inflection point. And our ability to lead in this new era will not rest on rhetoric but on action—on our capacity to build, to innovate, and to compete. A strong and dynamic manufacturing sector must be at the heart of that effort, ensuring that America remains self-reliant, yet engaged, in the world, prepared, and ready to meet the challenges ahead.

The question before us is not whether the world will change—it already has. The question is whether we will shape the future, or be shaped by it.

I know how I want to answer that question. And I sure hope everyone here would agree with me.

So thank you. I want to thank you for your leadership. I want to thank you for your vision. And as always, I want to thank you for your commitment to the success of this storied institution, the National Association of Manufacturers.