Trade

Washington, D.C. – National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) President and CEO Jay Timmons released the following statement on the Trump administration’s announcement of tariffs on an additional $200 billion in Chinese imports:

Over the last year, manufacturers have delivered for our communities and our people, raising wages, building new plants and creating new jobs thanks to game-changing tax and regulatory reform. But more U.S. tariffs and Chinese retaliation risk undoing that progress and moving our economy in the wrong direction.

With every day that passes without progress on a rules-based, bilateral trade agreement with China, the potential grows for manufacturers and manufacturing workers to get hurt. No one wins in a trade war, and manufacturing workers are hopeful the administration’s approach will quickly yield results. Now is the time for talks—not just tariffs—and manufacturers have laid out a blueprint to reset the U.S.-China commercial relationship that will result in ending China’s unfair and anti-competitive behavior.

In January of this year, Timmons and the NAM sent a letter to the President urging the administration to negotiate a bilateral trade agreement with China. Given plans for additional negotiations, Timmons said that they need to start bearing fruit, because “the costs of a sustained trade war have the potential to be devastating for America’s manufacturers and workers.” In August, the NAM released a three-point framework outlining manufacturers’ priorities to be included in any trade agreement between the two countries.

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The National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) is the largest manufacturing association in the United States, representing small and large manufacturers in every industrial sector and in all 50 states. Manufacturing employs more than 12 million men and women, contributes $2.25 trillion to the U.S. economy annually, has the largest economic impact of any major sector and accounts for more than three-quarters of private-sector research and development. The NAM is the powerful voice of the manufacturing community and the leading advocate for a policy agenda that helps manufacturers compete in the global economy and create jobs across the United States. For more information about the Manufacturers or to follow us on Shopfloor, Twitter and Facebook, please visit www.nam.org.