Dan Brouillette and Peter Navarro: Trump’s manufacturing, energy revival supports Pa. workers
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Imagine a world in which millions of American energy and manufacturing jobs were sent overseas, all to help countries like Communist China prosper. Well, you don’t have to imagine that, you lived it. That was the grim reality Pennsylvanians faced before President Trump took office.
Between 2000 and 2017, under the weight of bad trade deals like NAFTA and China’s entry into the World Trade Organization — the previous administration supported both — America lost over 5 million manufacturing jobs and shuttered more than 70,000 factories.
Pennsylvania alone lost nearly 70,000 manufacturing jobs. Hardest hit were the bedrock communities in the western part of the state that depend on blue-collar jobs for opportunity and stability.
During the Trump administration, over 200,000 jobs have returned to the commonwealth, including almost 17,000 manufacturing jobs. And in Donald Trump’s America, prosperity has spread across the state.
Take the Philadelphia shipyard. It was down to less than 80 employees under the defense budget cuts of the Obama administration. But this administration took strategic action. We first boosted the yard’s repair work capabilities. By working with local labor leaders and the shipyard owners, multimillion-dollar contracts from the federal government flowed to Philly to repair military support ships like the SS Antares and Pollux.
The Philly yard was then successful in landing a large contract to build an entirely new fleet of National Security Multi-Mission Vessel (NSMV) ships. These ships will provide state-of-the-art training at our nation’s maritime academies, training American citizen for careers in marine transportation. They will also be able to provide transport of key supplies in case of natural disasters such as hurricanes and earthquakes, while ensuring a long-term future for the Philly shipyard that could eventually employ nearly 2,000 workers. As Trump has often said: “Economic security is national security.”
And how about the prosperity we are witnessing out in the western part of the state in places like New Castle? There, the administration tapped steel manufacturers such as the Ellwood Group and Scot Forge to build critical steel ingots and components like 75-foot long propellers for naval submarines.
There is also the cutting edge ethane cracker project — a multibillion-dollar facility in Beaver County that will produce petrochemicals. According to the American Chemistry Council, this industry could bring as many as 100,000 jobs to Pennsylvania and the surrounding region. This project and others will also help diversify Appalachia’s economy by attracting new businesses and investment to a region that sorely needs it. The president has called for even more energy infrastructure that would benefit the region, such as pipelines, through his executive order on promoting energy infrastructure and economic growth.
The Department of Energy has also made tremendous strides in clean coal technology, allowing manufacturers like U.S. Steel to use American energy innovation to stay competitive. Such efforts have encouraged companies, with facilities in Braddock, to invest in building new coal cogeneration plants to become more efficient and environmentally sustainable.
Importantly, the president ended the war on Pennsylvania’s energy workers. Today, more than 300,000 Pennsylvanians work in the oil and gas industry, and the commonwealth is the second largest natural gas producer in the entire country. At the same time, Pennsylvania landowners benefit from more than $8 billion in royalties a year.
Today, under Trump’s vision of energy independence, America stands as the world leader in oil and natural gas production. We are also a net exporter of these energy sources for the first time since 1949.
We have reached that pinnacle because the president’s policies have unleashed American energy dominance, made our companies more globally competitive, and boosted the national economy. One key policy: The Trump administration has eliminated burdensome regulations that have stifled the energy industry.
Trump is the champion of Pennsylvania’s vibrant energy sector. However, if opponents of reliable and affordable energy get their way, the game-changing technology of hydraulic fracturing will be banned. If that happens, it will be an economic catastrophe — the U.S. Chamber of Commerce estimates that such a ban would eliminate over 600,000 jobs by 2025 in Pennsylvania alone.
This administration promises to continue to harness the region’s abundant resources and create even more jobs and opportunity on Pennsylvania’s horizon. The petrochemicals industry — which uses natural gas to manufacture products we require for everyday life, like plastics, pharmaceuticals, and clothing — holds great promise for Appalachia. And President Trump always keeps his promises.
Dan Brouillette is the U.S. secretary of energy. Peter Navarro is assistant to the president, director of trade and manufacturing policy.