NAFTA, AUTO PARTS AND JOBS 

"Motor vehicle suppliers are the the largest employer of manufacturing jobs in the United States."

Ann Wilson is the Senior Vice President for Government Affairs at the Motor and Equipment Manufacturers Association, MEMA, and she was one of the four speakers on the auto panel at the May 25 GBD event NAFTA, From Cars to Carrots. The premise of her remarks was that, yes, NAFTA does need an upgrade, but that needs to be done with care because a lot of U.S. jobs - especially jobs among U.S. makers of auto parts - depend on NAFTA continuing largely as it is and has been for many years.

Citing a recent study, Ms. Wilson put the current number of jobs in the U.S. auto parts industry at 871,000. "That," she said, "is a 19 percent increase over the last four years." And, she said: 

"NAFTA is part of the reason why U.S. employment in the supplier industry is so strong."

Two-thirds of the technology in today's automobiles, Ms. Wilson said, is developed by the U.S. auto parts companies in cooperation with their customers, the major automobile producers. She then turned back to the importance of NAFTA, saying: 

 
Our industry ... operates in a global environment. We are very dependent on NAFTA for both our supply base and our customer base and our ultimate customers, which are the purchasers of motor vehicles.

Free and fair trade is imperative for a strong domestic supply base, and it's imperative for the supplier employment. And we recognize that we are central to the renegotiation and modernization of NAFTA. 

 
... Not only has NAFTA been good for suppliers and our customers, the automobile industry and the trucking industry, but it's also been good for the workforce we have. [In that context,] we are encouraging the Trump Administration to take a look at NAFTA and [NAFTA] modernization.

Yes, Ann Wilson has her wish-list for things that might be usefully included in an upgraded NAFTA. Like Charles Uthus before her, Ms. Wilson urged the negotiators to include provisions for recognizing U.S. certifications for auto parts, and she called for stronger protections for intellectual property rights. In the larger arena of intellectual property rights, the question of counterfeit goods looms particularly large for the auto parts makers. "Counterfeiting and anti-counterfeiting measures are really important to our members," Ms. Wilson said. 

 
That said, the issue she returned to most forcefully was the risk of losing the benefits the U.S. currently gets from NAFTA. To cast a cold eye on that issue, one needs to play the "what if" game. What if Mexico's normal tariffs were re-introduced into U.S.-Mexico trade. The Boston Consulting Group, Ms. Wilson said, made some estimate of what the ensuing costs might be. Their projection: $16 to $27 billion additional costs to automobile producers in the United States. What would that mean to the industry? We'll conclude with Ms. Wilson's response to that question:

Those kinds of costs ...how would they be absorbed? One of the things we think could happen is what we call the de-contenting of vehicles. - [Taking out some of those things that are not required by the Federal Government, for example.] -- That could actually impact 25,000 to 50,000 jobs in the supplier industry.

Just three points. 

 
U.S. Manufacturing Employment. Today's featured quote is a dramatic one and underscores the importance of the auto parts industry to the U.S. economy. It should not detract from that point at all to note that the universe of American manufacturers is pretty big. Thus even the largest sectoral subset, namely auto parts, would appear to be roughly 7 to 8 percent of total manufacturing employment in the United States. 

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics manufacturing currently accounts for roughly 12,398,000 U.S. jobs Here is a short graph of America manufacturing employment, going back to 2007: 

U.S. MANUFACTURING EMPLOYMENT, 2007-2017

That was quite a decline between 2007 and 2010, but things have been improving since. The question is, what effect will the NAFTA renegotiation have on the iterations of that graph for January 2018 and January 2019?

Mexico's Elections. There were sub-federal elections in Mexico yesterday, the most significant of which was the gubernatorial race in the State of Mexico, which surrounds Mexico City. Had the opposition candidate - Delfina Gómez Alvarez  of the National Regeneration Movement (Morena) - won the day, it would have sent shock waves throughout North America as everyone tried to calculate the consequences of her victory for NAFTA and for the prospect of Morena's leader Andrés Manuel Lópes Obrador in the general election in July 2018. 

But the PRI, the party of President Peña Nieto, held on. Their candidate, Alfredo del Mazo Maza, won. So, the reporting is as little more subdued, at least in quantity, but the question remains: how will Mexico's politics (and Canada's) feed into the NAFTA renegotiation process.

Another topic.  The next TTALK Quote will be on an issue other than NAFTA, but we'll pick up the NAFTA thread again soon.

Here is the link to the panel on NAFTA and U.S. Auto Production from GBD's May 25 Event on NAFTA, From Cars to Carrots.  Ms. Wilson's remarks begin at the 13:30 minute mark. 

 

Mexico: The PRI Squeaks By takes you to a Reuters story on yesterday elections in Mexico, most notably the gubernatorial race in the State of Mexico, where the ruling party of President Peña Nieto, the PRI, managed to hold on, albeit by a slim margin. 

On U.S. Manufacturing Employment is a link to the page on the website of the Bureau of Labor Statistics with the above graph and related data.