The Trump administration’s tariffs have been front-and-center at the Hannover Messe industrial trade show in Germany, where state officials and Wisconsin businesses are visiting this week as part of a WEDC trade mission.
That’s according to Missy Hughes, secretary and CEO of the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. In an interview from Germany yesterday, she said tariffs have featured prominently in conversations with state and local German officials, and the trade show’s opening ceremony included multiple speeches that referenced them.
“The resounding thing that we hear, that I always hear from business, you know, is we need predictability and stability in order to be really successful,” she said. “And so there’s real concerns about how the tariffs will create unpredictability. And as we’ve seen, one day they’re on, one day they’re off, so that’s really difficult for businesses to be able to plan around.”
Still, she added the state’s delegation led by Gov. Tony Evers is hearing “a lot of appreciation for our willingness” to travel to Germany and build the relationships that underpin international commerce.
“Business endures politics, and relationships between people endures, so folks are really happy to have Wisconsin here,” Hughes said.
Hannover Messe, one of the world’s largest trade fairs, typically attracts as many as 200,000 visitors per year. It showcases a wide range of industrial technologies and products for advanced manufacturing. Hughes says it was the main draw for the four Wisconsin companies that joined the trade mission.
These include: Advanced Ionics, based in New Berlin; Scanalytics Inc. in Madison; Sabhya Technologies of Brookfield; and Dedicated Computing, based in Waukesha. The New North Inc., a regional economic development group based in northeastern Wisconsin, is also participating, according to a WEDC spokesperson.
The fair offers these companies an opportunity to form connections with potential partners from across the world, Hughes noted. Each of the Wisconsin businesses on the trade venture are in the manufacturing space in some capacity.
With help from WEDC’s market experts, participants select markets to visit that offer the greatest opportunity. The business leaders are meeting this week with potential distributors or customers, and while new deals often arise as part of the trade missions, Hughes said the real value comes from building lasting relationships overseas.
“Really, it’s about making those connections and understanding that the opportunities in the global marketplace are really plentiful, and that businesses should be exploring those,” she said.
Meanwhile, Milwaukee-based Rockwell Automation yesterday announced it will launch a “digital twin” industrial modeling capability at Hannover Messe this week. Its Emulate3D Factory Test is used for factory-scale virtual controls testing, which manufacturers can use to test automation systems before deploying them.
Along with Hannover, the trade mission also includes stops in Berlin and Wisconsin’s sister-state of Hessen, as well as parts of France.
“We have very, very deep ties to Germany,” Hughes said. “We have many companies that both sell their products to Germany but also German companies that have invested in Wisconsin. One of the things that we make a point of doing when we come to visit Germany is visit those companies.”
After the industrial trade show, Evers, Hughes and representatives of Madison-based BioForward will make a stop at DMEA, which is touted as the world’s largest digital health trade show. Hughes said state officials will take the opportunity to spread the word about Wisconsin’s designation as a regional Tech Hub around personalized medicine.
Hughes said they will ensure that attendees “understand that the biohealth industry in Wisconsin is just growing and growing, and there’s a real opportunity to plug into that industry if you’re doing that in Germany, or anywhere else in the EU.”
See more on the trade mission here and Evers’ related comments here.
