(Photo courtesy Urban Manufacturing Alliance)
As of today, if you own or work for a manufacturing business in Delaware, Hawaii, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Mississippi, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, or Wyoming, you’ve just lost your most accessible, affordable source of support for growing your business, improving efficiency, hiring and training workers, and staying competitive and informed in a volatile economy.
Hours before announcing a new wave of tariffs allegedly aimed at strengthening American manufacturing (many of which have been paused), the Trump administration quietly gutted the main federal support system explicitly designed to do just that: the Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP). For more than 35 years, MEP Centers have been the backbone of technical assistance for small- and medium-sized manufacturers across all 50 states and Puerto Rico.
In early April, the administration abruptly defunded 20% of MEP centers, with the intention to let funding lapse for the rest, effectively dismantling the program nationwide.
For small- and medium-sized manufacturers, who make up 75% of U.S. manufacturing businesses, MEP centers are often the only door they can walk through for help modernizing operations or weathering supply chain disruptions.
How the MEP Program Works
The 51 Manufacturing Extension Partnership centers across the country are designed “to enhance the productivity and technological performance of U.S. manufacturing.” They do this by providing hands-on technical assistance to small- and medium-sized manufacturers through a public-private partnership model.
The majority of businesses served by MEP centers are mom-and-pop manufacturers that anchor local economies and provide stable, middle-class jobs in communities across the country, often for generations. Without MEP centers, these firms lose a critical resource to learn about and make the kinds of improvements that keep their doors open and their workers employed.
Despite its national reach, the federal investment in the Manufacturing Extension Partnership is astonishingly small. At just $175 million annually — roughly one-half of 1% of the national defense budget — MEP funding is both fiscally prudent and irrefutably tied to our national security.
The Impact of MEP Centers
For every one dollar of federal investment in 2022, the MEP network generated $35.80 in new sales growth and $40.50 in new client investment, translating into more than $5.6 billion in new sales. During this same time, for every $1,353 of federal investment, the network either created or retained one manufacturing job. That federal investment is matched 1:1 by state and local governments and client fees, a cost-sharing model that maximizes taxpayer return while strengthening partnerships across government and industry.
(Photo courtesy Urban Manufacturing Alliance)
As Bernadine Hawes, Chair of the MEP Advisory Board and a board member of the Urban Manufacturing Alliance, put it: “The MEP program has spent the last 10 years transforming American manufacturing away from traditional industry towards a model built on partnerships and innovation across value chains. This is the extended benefit MEP centers have delivered to the nation. With this abrupt defunding of MEPs comes an asymmetrical power dynamic that does not meet the criteria for creating a strong American manufacturing sector.”
What’s At Stake
The deeper issue isn’t just the hypocrisy of the cuts. It’s the damage they inflict on communities already struggling in a fragile economy.
If we want jobs and factories “to come roaring back,” we must support the ones already here. They are the foundation of our manufacturing base. Without them, hollowed-out supply chains, an aging workforce, and crumbling infrastructure will make reshoring not just implausible, but impossible.
If the goal is to create “stronger competition and lower prices for consumers,” the MEP centers are irreplaceable. Eliminating this support is a blow to the entire ecosystem - businesses, their workers, and the communities and local economies they hold together.
Manufacturing shapes more than products — it shapes communities, livelihoods, and the small businesses that keep our economy running. Manufacturing rebalances an economy over-reliant on low-wage service and retail jobs, and acts as a source of pride and identity for the places where it takes root.
Manufacturers are powerful drivers of shared prosperity and community resilience — but they can’t do it alone. They need coordinated, long-term investment. MEP centers have been a bipartisan cornerstone of that support. We urge the federal government to reconsider its actions - reducing infrastructure investments, sweeping tariffs, and dismantling the MEP network - and listen to the businesses and workers who are keeping American manufacturing alive.
If we truly want “more production at home,” then we must invest in the people, businesses, and places that are already doing the work of making America great.
This op-ed was co-authored by the Co-Directors of the Urban Manufacturing Alliance: Nepal Asatthawasi, Tanu Kumar, Audra Ladd, and Katy Stanton.