Washington, D.C. – On Monday, October 21st, 2019, U.S. Vice President Mike Pence traveled to Pennsylvania and got a firsthand look at SCHOTT North America’s original optical glass manufacturing plant in the United States. The facility first opened its doors 50 years ago.
In photos: Vice President Pence speaks directly to Pennsylvania workers.
“Since then, this facility, I’m told, has expanded nearly five times over,” he said.
SCHOTT’s success story symbolizes the manufacturing renaissance that’s happened under U.S. President Donald J. Trump. In the less than 3 years since Election Day 2016, SCHOTT has invested $32 million in this one facility alone and expanded its workforce by 15 percent. Then, they watched their sales soar by a third.
“Each one of you are proving every single day that as long as the playing field is level, American workers can out-compete, out-innovate, and out-work anybody in the world,” the Vice President told employees.
But that level playing field is at risk, despite President Trump’s continued push to renegotiate America’s aging, failing trade deals. The reason is that when it comes to our most important trading relationship—that with Canada and Mexico, covered by the outdated NAFTA—House Democrats continue to shelve President Trump’s new deal.
USMCA, or the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement, updates the quarter-century old NAFTA to the tune of a projected $68 billion in new economic growth. That amounts to another 175,000 jobs, of which 50,000 will be on factory floors across America.
“As I stand here today, the USMCA is languishing in the House of Representatives,” Vice President Pence said. “You see the headlines. These days, Democrats are spending all their time on endless investigations and a partisan impeachment. But the American people deserve better.”
Democrats wrongly assume that obstructing and declining to update NAFTA will hurt President Trump politically. They’re wrong. But more important, putting partisan politics before the very labor and environmental improvements they once fought for is Washington at its swampiest.
House Democrats, Speaker Nancy Pelosi claims your 24/7 hearing circus won’t keep Congress from doing its job. Prove it. Pass USMCA, and put American workers first.
