Op-Ed: Why trade matters to Brooklyn manufacturers

By U.S.Secetary of Commerce Penny Pritzker and Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce President Carlo A. Scissura

Today, Brooklyn-made products are exported to countries all over the world, from Canada and Brazil to Saudi Arabia and Japan. But before that was possible, America’s fourth largest city had to reinvent its manufacturing industry.

Throughout the 1970s, '80s and '90s, the urban economy of Brooklyn, as in many other cities, was shattered. There was massive population loss and an exodus of employers, particularly the manufacturing businesses that embodied the borough. Across the country, manufacturing had left metropolises, and unlike its neighbor to the west, Brooklyn was never the borough of Wall Street banks and Park Avenue ad agencies. Kings County was a place where goods were produced.

Since the dawn of the new millennium, however, the manufacturing light has shined on the borough again, and Brooklyn has brought back the old with a twist of the new. Rather than smokestacks, chemical plants and munitions factories, Brooklyn firms are creators of 3D printers, apparel, furniture, medicine and health supplements, and artisanal food and beverages.

For example, Liberty View Plaza—a 1.1-million-square-foot former FDA testing facility sold by the federal government to New York City and a private developer—is now home to over 20 makers creating state-of-the-art wearable technology.

These products are being sold not only here in the United States but all over the world. The Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce is the only public entity providing mandatory legal export documents in the borough, and through its services, Brooklyn products were sold in 45 nations with an estimated total value of $4.6 million in 2015—up from 28 countries and roughly $1 million the year before.

But while today’s manufacturers look very different from the factories of the past, our trade agreements have not kept pace. We are trying to ship our innovative, made-in-America goods around the world using outdated trade rules.

Put simply: The strength of America’s manufacturers depends on their ability to export, and we are putting them at a disadvantage in some of the most significant markets in the world.

President Obama understands this. That is why he wants to level the playing field for Brooklyn exporters through the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal.

TPP will give our companies greater access to the Asia-Pacific region, which is growing faster than any other. By 2030, the majority of the global middle class—3.2 billion consumers—will be in that part of the world. TPP will give U.S. goods and services unprecedented market access by eliminating more than 18,000 tariffs on American-made exports.

In addition, this trade agreement will promote our values and raise the standards for doing business worldwide. From the environment to labor to intellectual property rights, we believe there is a way to operate in the 21st century, defined by fair wages, safe workplaces and a protected environment. Unlike in the past, these types of standards are critical pillars in TPP.

This 21st-century, high-standards trade agreement will benefit Brooklyn workers, manufacturers, entrepreneurs and consumers, and the Obama administration is working with Congress every day to help explain the significant benefits of this deal, which represent the opportunity for real economic growth in the United States.

There is simply no reason to delay unlocking TPP's benefits for American job creators.

A report by the Peterson Institute for International Economics shows that if TPP is delayed by just one year, the United States will see an estimated one-time national loss of $94 billion. That translates to an average of $700 per U.S. household.

The more we prolong the process of approving this agreement, the more we cede the rules of the road to China and other competitors in the region. We cannot afford to risk America’s leadership in manufacturing simply because other nations are acting more quickly than we are.

The time is now to upgrade our trade agreements to reflect a new generation of manufacturing. We need the Trans-Pacific Partnership.