Washington, DC - Congressman Tom Reed Tuesday highlighted how recent bills introduced along with the United States Mexico Canada Agreement (USMCA) will help New York manufacturing.

"We are proud to be a constant advocate for U.S. manufacturing in the halls of Congress, and the bills introduced will help give our local manufacturers fair access to resources they need to boost jobs," Reed said. "However, this is only one piece of the puzzle. Speaker Pelosi must put USMCA on the floor for a vote to keep the success of U.S. manufacturing moving in the right direction – otherwise the New York manufacturing jobs we care about could be in jeopardy."

Recent manufacturing bill introduced include:

• Made in America Manufacturing Communities Actdesignates "manufacturing communities" for additional technical assistance and preference in grant awards. This grant is designed to assist communities that are still hard-hit by the recession, particularly after downsizing and closing of major corporations and economic drivers.
  • The Finger Lakes Region was selected for this award during a 2014 Department of Commerce pilot program.during a 2014 pilot program. Commerce awarded $2.6 million in grants to High Tech Rochester, Inc. in 2016 to establish a business incubator space in a city-owned building. This project is estimated to create 100 new startup businesses and 1,000 new jobs within the first five years of operation. In total the Finger Lakes Region received five awards totaling $8.8M.; and anticipated another $30M before the program stopped receiving agency support.
• American Manufacturing Leadership Act renews the Manufacturing USA program which creates public-private partnerships that work toward a common goal: to secure the future of manufacturing in the United States through innovation, education, and collaboration.$110 million seed capital investment from the Department of Defense to help AIM Photonics. This attracted $1.4 billion private sector dollars and created 800 manufacturing jobs just a year after launching. Manufacturing USA has helped these private sector companies in NY-23:
  • Phase Innovations in Alfred, Seneca Foods in Geneva, Capro-X in Ithaca, Dickson Environmental Services in Bath, Zotos International in Geneva, Advanced Atomization in Clyde and LifeWall in Geneva.
• Reed teamed up with Rep. Joe Kennedy to reintroduce this bill.
• Chief Manufacturing Officer Act establishes the role of U.S. Chief Manufacturing Officer, responsible for the coordination and review of federal manufacturing-related policies across all agencies and the development of a National Manufacturing Strategy.

Reed highlighted how important USMCA is for New York manufacturers, as Canada and Mexico purchase nearly one-fifth of New York's total global manufacturing exports and 82 percent of those manufacturers are small - and medium-sized businesses supporting local New York jobs.

More than 21 thousand New York manufacturing jobs are at stake over the passage of USMCA.

USMCA will also boost manufacturing jobs across the country. For example, in the automotive sector alone this trade deal means:

• $34 billion in new automotive manufacturing investments in the U.S.;
• $23 billion in new annual purchases of U.S.-made automotive parts; and
• 76,000 new jobs in the U.S. automotive sector.
• USMCA includes "gold standard" language in the areas of labor, currency manipulation and rules of origin to help New York manufacturers.

v15i22