Many manufacturers across Illinois are facing higher costs, fewer customers and more uncertainty due to the ongoing fight over tariffs, according to the head of a leading manufacturing group in the state.
Mark Denzler, president of the Illinois Manufacturers Association [IMA], said many companies are deciding whether they can afford to absorb those costs or pass them on to their customers.
“Some companies have reduced [capital expenditure] spending, they’ve put a free on hiring new people, particularly when we see companies that are making a product that’s sold to consumers, you think food products for example,” Denzler said in an interview on WGLT’s Sound Ideas.
Denzler recently led a delegation to Washington to lobby Congress to push for more trade deals.
“Manufacturers want certainty and stability and predictability,” Denzler said.
Denzler said he supports tariffs when they are appropriate, such as those leveled against China, who he says has become a bad actor engaged in unfair trade practices.
Denzler said tariffs have hit Illinois agriculture especially hard as farmers face higher input costs and fewer markets for their commodities.
“Commodity prices are down, the farmer is not making as much money. Their costs are going up. It’s more expensive to buy that tractor, that combine. The ag sector is in particular struggling right now,” he said.
Denzler said the current battle over global tariffs is a sign the U.S. needs to create a formal industrial policy. He said if the U.S. wants to rely less on foreign markets for products as a long-term strategy, it would take time to build the infrastructure needed to make more in America, and only when it's even practical to do so.
“I certainly think — particularly with the supply chain issue that happened during COVID — we are really seeing a concerted effort to build facilities here, to expand facilities here, to make sure we are not so reliant on supply chains that are global,” Denzler said, adding that 95% of the world’s consumers live outside the U.S. “There has to be a recognition that it’s easier to build, particularly a large product, overseas to ship it because they are close to the customers.”
Tariffs have brought in an estimated $30 billion per month to the U.S., according to NPR.
'Makers on the Move'
The IMA and the Illinois Manufacturing Excellence Center [IMEC] plan their fourth annual "Makers on the Move" bus tour next week to visit manufacturing facilities across the state and showcase the work they do.
Manufacturers generate more than $580 billion to the state’s economy each year, make it the largest contributor to the state’s gross domestic product [GDP], according to the association.
