viewpoint
NAFTA and the construction equipment industry
F
or equipment buyers in Canada, the current North American Free Trade Agreement talks could have a serious impact on your business or government operations, including the equipment you buy in the future. A lot rides on the issue and unfortunately it seems to have become a tweeting war that distracts from the serious nature of the negotiations. Someone who is keenly aware of the importance of NAFTA is Rich Goldsbury, president of Doosan Bobcat in North America and Oceania, and chair of the Association of Equipment Manufacturers (AEM). You may best recognize AEM by the trade shows they run: among them are CONEXPO-CON/AGG, ICUEE and World of Asphalt/AGG1. As their name indicates, they represent equipment manufacturers and have over 900 member companies. NAFTA is important to these manufacturers and scrapping it could hurt them and their customers in Canada and Mexico. Mr. Goldsbury made this very clear in an op/ed piece he wrote for the U.S. News & World Report, titled Don’t Walk Away From NAFTA: Manufacturers’ ability to sell to Canada and Mexico is too important. The equipment manufacturing industry is huge. In the U.S., it supports 1.3 million jobs and contributed $159 billion to their economy last year, he said, and “Our industry also supported an additional 149,000 jobs in Canada, and contributed $15 billion to the Canadian economy.” Canada and Mexico are the largest export markets for U.S. manufactured goods, and that applies also to construction and farm equipment. This amounted to $9.1 billion in construction equipment exports to Canada in 2015 and $2.1 billion in farm equipment in 2016. Respective numbers for Mexico were $1 billion and $1.2 billion. The NAFTA agreement helped facilitate these sales by eliminating most tariffs and barriers to market access, Goldsbury stated. At the end of this year, it will have been a quarter century since NAFTA came into effect on January 1, 1994. Much has changed during that time. We have advanced from a very basic internet to a highly complex, sophisticated internet which we are dependent on for commerce, business management, information, health care, machine monitoring, finance, social media and much more. In that time, we have also seen the advent of smartphones, WiFi, GPS and other innovations, many of which are used in construction equipment. Updating NAFTA to this modern era is important. “There are plenty of terrific opportunities to improve upon NAFTA to the benefit of manufacturers in the United States, as well as Canada and Mexico,” said Goldsbury. “But exiting the agreement altogether would risk U.S. equipment manufacturers’ ability to sell to some of their most important customers.” Of course, there are many aspects to NAFTA. It is a complex agreement. There are contentious issues in it, such as agriculture, environmental protection, labour practices, energy and telecom. Fortunately, there are serious, knowledgeable professionals on all sides involved in the negotiations. I hope wisdom prevails over tweets.
Lawrence Buser Editorial Director
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Heavy Equipment Guide
>> March 2018
Heavy Equipment Guide March 2018 volume 33 • number 3 Editorial Director Lawrence Buser lbuser@baumpub.com; 604-291-9900 ext. 310 Associate Editor Lee Toop ltoop@baumpub.com; 604-291-9900 ext. 315 Assistant Editor Kaitlyn Till ktill@baumpub.com; 604-291-9900 ext. 330 Associate Publisher Justin Barone jbarone@baumpub.com; 604-291-9900 ext. 115 Account Manager Sam Esmaili sam@baumpub.com; 604-291-9900 ext. 110 Account Manager David Gilmour dgilmour@baumpub.com; 604-291-9900 ext. 105 Advertising Production Manager Tina Anderson production@baumpub.com; 604-291-9900 ext. 222 Design & Production Morena Zanotto morena@baumpub.com; 604-291-9900 ext. 320 Vice President/Publisher Ken Singer ksinger@baumpub.com; 604-291-9900 ext. 226 Vice President/Controller Melvin Date Chong mdatechong@baumpub.com President Engelbert J. Baum ebaum@baumpub.com Published by: Baum Publications Ltd. 124 - 2323 Boundary Road Vancouver, BC, Canada V5M 4V8 Tel: 604-291-9900 Toll Free: 1-888-286-3630 Fax: 604-291-1906 www.baumpub.com
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