Members join Congressional fly-in to share info on trade challenges; discuss USMCA

NAFEM members Kevin O’Brien (l), Larry Molinari (r) and NAFEM’s Charlie Souhrada at the Trade Makes America fly-in.

On July 17, NAFEM joined the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) at a Washington, D.C. Congressional, Trade Makes America Fly-in to encourage support for the USMCA. More than 135 manufacturers representing a wide variety of industries held 140 meetings with Senators and Representatives during the day-long event.

NAFEM members Larry Molinari, chairman, Perlick Corp., Milwaukee, Wis., and Kevin O’Boyle, director of marketing, InterMetro Industries Corp., Wilkes-Barre, Penn., along with Charlie Souhrada, CFSP, NAFEM’s VP of regulatory and technical affairs, met with elected officials on Capitol Hill to shed light on trade challenges and discuss the USMCA and its importance to the industry.

“Metro employees need our company to be competitive by importing and exporting our products in ways that provide affordable solutions to our customers,” says Kevin. “We’re looking to see progress from our legislators toward passage of the USMCA because it works for all sides.”

“The passage of USMCA is very important to Perlick,” says Molinari. “Without an agreement, our overall export sales of refrigerators and beverage dispensing equipment would be severely affected. Eighty percent of production comes from our Milwaukee plant and 75% of our export sales go to Canada or Mexico. Failure to have trade agreement with Mexico and Canada would raise our costs and likely reduce our sales by about 5%. I was glad to have the opportunity to explain, first-hand to Congressmen and Senators the negative consequences should there be no USMCA.”

To learn more, visit www.nam.org/usmca. To lend your support, text “USMCANOW” to 52886.