About an hour's drive outside Oklahoma City is one of the first active foreign trade zones in Indian Country — an economic tool for tribes and companies seeking stability amid fluctuating tariffs. Meet Citizen Potawatomi Nation's Iron Horse Industrial Park.
The 700 acres of trust land in Shawnee are home to a pipe manufacturer and a switch engine locomotive named "Linda." But the site's most unique feature sits inside a fenced-in area of a warehouse: a Customs and Border Protection cage.
This is a foreign trade zone, or FTZ, where goods can be legally imported and exported. Unlike the other FTZs across the country, this one is run by the Citizen Potawatomi Nation.
Vedrana Milakovic is the Citizen Potawatomi Director of Economic Planning and Development.
"We have clients that are using the foreign trade zone for either something called 'duty deferral,' which means that they're importing products from China and they're bringing in here … and they can go ahead and order quantity that's bigger to get the unit cost down, bring it here, and then go ahead and take it out as needed," Milakovic said.
Another company is utilizing the tribe's foreign trade zone for elimination.
"So they order huge quantities in China, bring it here to Ironhorse Industrial Park, and then go ahead and export it to Mexico," Milakovic said. "Bonded carrier in and out, which means there are no duties applied."
Milakovic said that during these unstable economic times, the tribal nation's FTZ can offer companies a sense of security.
"You have excessive tariffs and government shutdowns [and] you have to find revenue streams for the tribe that is reliable," Milakovic said. "But also as a company, you have to figure out one way to deal with the tariffs, mitigating them and making sure that your company knows what's coming. That way, you can handle all the ups and downs, and that's what a foreign trade zone is for."
Last month, Iron Horse Industrial Park received the Harvard Project on Indigenous Governance and Development's Honoring Nations award, which celebrates excellence in tribal governance.
Jael Whitney Brothers, the Assistant Director of the Honoring Nations program, said other tribes may have a foreign trade zone designation, but do not have activated sites yet.
"So I think that's also part of what is really compelling about Iron Horse is that they have one of the first like activated sites in Indian country," Brothers, who is Choctaw, said. "And so they're like a kind of a model for that reason."
Brothers said six awardees were selected out of an applicant pool of over 100, two of whom were from Oklahoma. The Cherokee Nation's College of Osteopathic Medicine — the only tribally affiliated medical school in the U.S. — was also recognized.
The tribes received the Honoring Nations awards — given to those with tribal governance excellence — during the National Congress of American Indians' annual convention in Seattle, Washington, in late November.
This report was produced by the Oklahoma Public Media Exchange, a collaboration of public media organizations. Help support collaborative journalism by donating at the link at the top of this webpage.
