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Manufacturers are “excited about the possibilities ahead” as the countdown to the new administration and new year begin, NAM President and CEO Jay Timmons said on “Bloomberg: Balance of Power” Friday. 
 
What’s going on: The 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act—which President-elect Trump called “rocket fuel” for manufacturing when he first announced it at the NAM board meeting that year—was a game-changer, Timmons told Bloomberg’s Joe Mathieu. “[It] provided record investment, record job growth, record wage growth over the next several years. So, our number-one priority is to get that renewed,” Timmons said. 

• Manufacturers’ other priorities in the new administration: ending the regulatory onslaught that’s costing the industry “$350 billion a year and hurting small manufacturers the worst.”  

A strong manufacturing base: The incoming administration should prioritize the manufacturing industry from Day One because “you cannot have a successful economy if you don’t have a strong manufacturing base,” Timmons continued. “So, to focus on growing manufacturing in the United States is really the first step in ensuring that your economy is on solid footing.” 
 
Reevaluating three dozen regulations: In recent communications with President-elect Trump and his Cabinet, the NAM has focused on three dozen specific regulations, urging reevaluation of each. Chief among these rules are:  

• The liquefied natural gas export permit ban put into place by the Biden administration in January;
• A February ruling by the D.C. District Court ruling that the Securities and Exchange Commission lacks the authority to regulate proxy advisory firms (in response to which the NAM filed a brief last month); and
• The infeasibly strict National Ambient Air Quality Standard for fine particulate matter—also known as PM2.5—announced by the Environmental Protection Agency in February. 

The tariff question: If the new administration implements tariffs, it should do so in “a very strategically targeted way to address policy problems that we’re seeing coming out of other countries,” Timmons stated.

• But “I don’t think we have the playbook yet out of the administration. I think we’re waiting to see what the president [decides].”   

A unique opportunity: In his second term, President-elect Trump will have the chance to build on both what he started in his first four years in office and the wins of the Biden administration, Timmons said. 

• President-elect Trump opened up markets and, through his tax cuts, reduced the cost of doing business in America—and the result was record investment and job creation, Timmons said. “The regulatory certainty that he put in place was so important as well.”
• The Biden administration “invested in specific areas of the economy that were national security concerns, like the CHIPS and Science Act, as well as … that energy transition that’s occurring through some policy provisions of the [Inflation Reduction Act].”
• “President Trump understands that he has a unique opportunity to really just supercharge [growth] even further. And we’re pretty excited about that.”