New Balance is withdrawing its support for President Barack Obama’s Trans-Pacific Partnership, because the Pentagon allegedly reneged on a promise to consider purchasing the company’s sneakers for the recruit training.
The Boston shoe company initially protested the massive trade deal, but quieted down about a year ago after the Department of Defense promised to consider them for a big sneaker contract, reported The Boston Globe. But that contract hasn’t materialized, and the company says the Defense Department isn’t seriously considering purchasing their shoes, so they’re once again speaking out against the trade deal.
“We swallowed the poison pill that is TPP so we could have a chance to bid on these contracts,” Matt LeBretton, New Balance’s vice president of public affairs, told The Boston Globe. “We were assured this would be a top-down approach at the Department of Defense if we agreed to either support or remain neutral on TPP. [But] the chances of the Department of Defense buying shoes that are made in the USA are slim to none while Obama is president.”
The military legally has to purchase goods made in the U.S. to supply its troops, but has made an exception for sneakers because of a lack of good options produced domestically. New Balance and other shoe companies are now working to produce an American-made shoe that can win that contract for as many as 200,000 shoe orders each year. (RELATED: Why Are Senate Republicans So Eager To Cede Trade Authority To Obama?)
Last year a representative from the Obama administration promised to expedite that process and get New Balance a good shot at the contract, if New Balance accepted the trade deal, LeBretton told The Boston Globe. New Balance agreed, and stopped voicing opposition to the deal it says could harm its U.S. factory workers by making imported shoes from Vietnam cheaper.
Now the administration is saying the shoes don’t meet quality and cost requirements for the contract, although it supports the company’s efforts to make a shoe that can secure the contract. A spokesman for the Office of the US Trade Representative told The Boston Globe it’s a mistake for the company to link bidding on a Defense Department contract with its support for the TPP, because it’s a separate government process.
The Obama administration released the full text of the trade deal in November, unveiling a 5,544-page document that contains more than 2 million words and is more than three times as long as the King James Bible. Congress is expected to vote on the deal sometime this year.
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