International Investment Trans-Atlantic Partnership

The Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) has been a point of discussion for many years. The trade deal, which supporters say would reduce trade barriers between the U.S. and the European Union, has been stalled in Congress for more than two years.

With or without TTIP, however, there has been a steady stream of manufacturing commerce going on between the U.S. and Europe. For German-based companies, the need to not just sell to the U.S., but also to locate manufacturing on U.S. soil, has long been a strategic imperative. As an example, Festo is a manufacturing and robotics company based in Germany, but it sees a vital partner in the U.S. market.

“Festo has been investing in the US market for more than 40 years and is a reliable partner for American enterprises, which now not only require machinery and production facilities, engineering expertise, software and supplier components for the establishment and modernization of their production locations, but above all technical education,” the company said in a press release. “In these times of increasing automation, the company is thereby securing jobs and salaries as well as facilitating industrialization in Germany and America.” Festo has opened a 45 mn. USD production and logistics center in Mason (Ohio), that employs 150 workers and gives the company a distribution and manufacturing hub closer to its customers.

Major German manufacturers like Siemens, Volkswagen or BMW have significant facilities in the U.S. These investments have worked both ways. A presentation on German-American trade relations in 2014 noted there are about 1 million U.S. jobs dependent on German-owned companies and approximately 600,000 German jobs dependent on U.S.-owned companies.

Source: Courtesy CFE Media, USA

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