Home > About BNE > Press Room > 2008 Archive > May > Cummins exec defends free trade deals

Cummins exec defends free trade deals

President/COO says foreign trade benefits Jamestown plant

By Matt Glynn
Updated: 05/09/08 9:52 AM

Free trade agreements and their impact are a hot topic on the campaign trail. Count Joe Loughrey, president and chief operating officer of Cummins Inc., as a staunch proponent of the deals’ value.

"Despite what many isolationists would have us believe, international trade is not a zero sum game," Loughrey said. "Growth outside the U. S. doesn’t have to come at the expense of American workers and American communities. In fact, Cummins is proof that strength in international markets can lead to job gains at home."

Loughrey was the keynote speaker at World Trade Celebration 2008 on Thursday, organized by World Trade Center Buffalo Niagara.

Indiana-based Cummins, which recorded sales of $13 billion last year, has strong ties to the region. Its heavy-duty engine and components manufacturing plant in Jamestown employs nearly 1,500 people, and a host of Western New York companies supply Cummins with products and services.

Loughrey said Cummins has grown both in the United States and elsewhere. He credited international trade with creating "hundreds of jobs" at its Jamestown plant and its suppliers in the region.

In 2006 and 2007, he said, one third of the engines shipped from the Jamestown plant went to Mexico or Canada. In the 1990s, he said, Cummins made engines in Mexico that are today made in Jamestown and exported to Mexico.

Critics of the North American Free Trade Agreement and other trade deals say they have hurt U. S. manufacturing and triggered huge job losses. Locally, critics cite examples like Trico’s manufacturing shift to Mexico. And striking workers at American Axle & Manufacturing say they fear losing their jobs to other countries.

Loughrey acknowledged the imbalance in trade within NAFTA has soared since 2000, but he attributed most of that gap to energy imports. "The U. S. needs this oil and gas, and wouldn’t we rather get it from our friendly neighbors than elsewhere?" he said.

The Cummins executive also appealed for pursuing free trade deals that "level the economic playing field," protect workers’ rights, provide for environmental safeguards and pay attention to the impact the deals can have on impoverished people in developing nations.

He also said that free trade will continue to have a negative economic impact on some people in the United States and Canada.

"We have a responsibility to ensure that they have a chance to develop the skills necessary to move into new jobs and to thrive in the global marketplace," he said.

But Loughrey said in his view, the biggest threat to U. S. manufacturing is a lack of skilled workers able to perform advanced manufacturing jobs.

mglynn@buffnews.com