6/29/2016
By Charles Payne, CEO & Principal Analyst

This is state beaming with pride for its historic role in providing the steel that helped build America.  But times have changed, and there are a number of reasons for this change.  There are estimates of U.S. job losses tied directly to the NAFTA in a range of 700,000 to one million.   In Pennsylvania, there were 876,900 manufacturing jobs in January 1994, which came in at 565,900 last month.   By the same token, there is a lot of evidence job’s lost didn’t go anywhere, but were replaced by productivity and innovation.

Productivity & Innovation

While manufacturing jobs continue to slide in Pennsylvania manufacturing output is climbing with exports being a key driver. 

We think of steel and metals when we think of Pennsylvania, but chemicals and food & beverages are bigger these days.

At Stake in Trade War

According to the Center for Manufacturing, exports support 201,020 Pennsylvania manufacturing jobs or 19% of the total.   Manufacturing exports $36.0 billion with 52% going to free trade agreement (FTA) partners.

Manufacturing exports increased 15% from 2010 to 2015 with top destinations:

• Canada 29.9%
• Mexico 11.3%
• UK 11.3%
• China 6.5%
• Germany 4.1%

I’m a proponent of trade, and yet, there is no doubt we need to be smarter about trade, especially with protecting intellectual property and making sure that Americans aren’t suckers.  On that note, we must avoid mercantilism and the protectionist instincts percolating in our nation. It was the same knee-jerk reaction to an ugly economic backdrop that actually made a past Great Recession a Great Depression.

Charles Payne
Wall Street Strategies

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