New Balance said Wednesday it is opposing the Trans-Pacific Partnership in the wake of the Pentagon backing down on a promise to use the sneaker company for outfitting its employees.
The Boston footwear company had supported the trade deal among 12 Pacific Rim nations, but began disengaging last year.
New Balance now admits that despite promises the Department of Defense would award the company contracts for its recruits, those orders never came in.
“We swallowed the poison pill that is TPP so we could have a chance to bid on these contracts,” New Balance spokesman Matt LeBretton said. “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.”
Instead, the New England company will fight the deal, which would make it cheaper for foreign products to be imported to the U.S., putting the company’s factory workers in a compromised position because the majority of its shoes are made overseas, but the company says domestic manufacturing is important to it.
A spokesman for the federal government said it would be unwise for New Balance to cite the TPP and manufacturing laws as its reason for taking legal action against the Obama administration.
“It is unfortunate that, despite a strong outcome in TPP that advances the interest of U.S. footwear workers, New Balance now appears to be changing its position on TPP in response to the Pentagon’s separate procurement process,” spokesman for the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, Matt McAlvanah, said in a statement.
