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If “history is prologue,” manufacturers can expect to see dramatic growth and prosperity in the coming years, NAM President and CEO Jay Timmons said today.

What’s going on: The 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act—which the NAM worked with the first Trump administration to bring about—was a boon to manufacturers, Timmons told CNBC’s Frank Holland on “Worldwide Exchange” this morning.

• The legislation’s many pro-growth provisions, including a 100% deduction for the purchase of equipment and machinery in the tax year of purchase and a more favorable interest deductibility standard, led to “record investment … record job growth [and] … record wage growth here in the United States,” he said.
• But, while “we’ve had great progress” with some historic legislation from the current administration, the expiration of many manufacturing-favorable measures and the scheduled expiration of several more at the end of 2025 “were really causing a lot of concern” among manufacturers, who were also increasingly concerned about “the regulatory agenda” before the election, Timmons said.
• He cited the recent drop in manufacturer optimism from the second quarter of 2024 to the third, as found in the NAM’s latest Manufacturers’ Outlook Survey.

Looking ahead: President-elect Trump told the NAM Board in September that he would “make the Trump tax cuts permanent” and put an end to the federal regulatory onslaught, something the NAM has long urged Congress to do.

On trade: When asked by Holland whether an expected increase in tariffs would be “a meaningful tailwind when it comes to the manufacturing sector,” Timmons said that “depends on how they’re implemented.”

• If tariffs are “targeted against, for instance, intellectual property theft or other issues like dumping or subsidization, then that can be very meaningful to manufacturers in a positive way here in the United States.”​​​​​​​