Manufacturing Extension Partnerships Face Uncertain Future as Trump Pulls Funding
President Donald Trump’s administration will not renew contracts offering federal support for 10 Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) programs, pulling millions of dollars in funding that small- and mid-sized manufacturers had used to support their operations.
And, the April 1 decision is likely the first step in cutting funding to the entire national MEP network as the 10 states cut had contracts that expired at the end of March. MEP contracts in the remaining states expire in July 2025, October 2025, January 2026 and March 2026. So, within a year, the entire network could be defunded. Though operated by state agencies (often universities), the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) manages the nationwide program.
The first state MEPs hit were in:
“The Department of Commerce is evaluating how it can best use the resources provided by Congress to most effectively advance U.S. manufacturing capabilities in alignment with statute and the President’s priorities for U.S. leadership in critical and emerging technologies,” a NIST spokesman said.
The federal government provides up to half of the funding that MEPs spend, with the rest coming from states and local governments and sponsors (non-profits and often large manufacturing corporations). Companies that use MEP services also pay a portion of the costs.
David Vasko, a retired Rockwell Automation executive and a member of NIST's MEP Advisory Board, said he and other board members did not receive any advanced warning about the cuts, learning about them only after contract cancellations.
“We’re making this huge push to reshore things to scale up businesses here, and the instrument that we have that's been so successful doing that has been the MEPs,” Vasko said. “They’ve really helped the small and medium manufacturers to go up to the next level.”
Trump has made reshoring American manufacturing a hallmark of his administration; this isn’t his first attack on MEP funding. During his first term, he called for eliminating the program during budget negotiations, though Congress restored those funds.
Congressional Democrats blasted the decision to defund MEPs, saying the president doesn’t have the authority to rescind funding that Congress had already appropriated. Similar funding fights are taking place throughout the government as Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), led by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, slashes contracts and federal spending.
Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-California), Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Michigan) and Rep. Sarah McBride (D-Delaware) said in a joint statement, “The NIST MEP program has had bipartisan support for decades. This network empowers small and medium manufacturers in every single state…. With these closures, President Trump is packing up our manufacturing jobs and sending them to China.”
NIST officials did not explain why the administration is looking to cut the program. Project 2025, a blueprint for Trump’s second term created by a group of consevative policymakers, called for the program’s elimination, noting that when lawmakers created the program in 1988, they called for it to eventually become self-funded. Lawmakers removed that requirement in 1998. During his candidacy, Trump distanced himself from the policy recommendations, but his executives orders so far have closely matched Project 2025’s framework.
“Business advisory services would be more properly carried out by the private sector. The next Administration should propose legislation to zero out this $150 million program and fully privatize existing MEP centers,” wrote Thomas F. Gilman, a top official in the Commerce Department during Trump’s first term and one of the framers of Project 2025.
Vasko said he has met with dozens of lawmakers throughout the years, and advocating for the MEP network was never a hard sell. Politicians on both sides of the aisle typically supported improving the competitiveness of America’s smaller producers. And, he added, manufacturing workers remain hard to find, so the MEPs had prioritized productivity and efficiency when working with small businesses.
“As close as we are to full employment, we have to be more productive,” Vasko said. “We’re not going to find a whole lot of more people, and the MEPs are just crucial to making that happen.
So this really does concern me. I just don’t understand.”
The most typical service provided by MEPs is consulting, often by experienced manufacturing leaders who train smaller businesses about continuous improvement and lean principles. Other services include ISO training and preparation services for companies seeking certifications to work within specific industries. Vasko adds that MEPs in recent years have trained smaller businesses on connecting equipment to complex monitoring systems and the cybersecurity challenges that digital manufacturing presents.
“There is an economy of scale... look at security or connectivity. You need to figure out how to do it once and then you can then span it out. You can push it out to the different MEPs,” Vasko said. “A business trying to pay for it on their own, they’re reinventing the wheel.”
Ethan Karp, a regular IndustryWeek contributor and president and CEO of Cleveland-area MEP Magnet, criticized the defunding on LinkedIn. Magnet, as one of several Ohio MEP programs, retains its funding for now, but Karp noted that it could also have its contract eliminated in the near future.
“Ironically, this news broke just as President Trump was announcing global tariffs to bring manufacturing back to America,” Karp wrote. “The problem is, for this to happen manufacturers need to scale up with automation and technology. The MEP program is the key national program designed to help them do this. Cutting MEP now is like building a runway and then grounding the planes.”
Harry Moser, founder of The Reshoring Institute that advocates for American Manufacturing, opposed the cuts to the MEP program but says the partnerships should be formed in a more focused way.
“Many MEPs are more focused on revenue generation than on improving U.S. manufacturing,” Moser said. “The MEPs should have two or three major objectives that equipment and software suppliers are not focused on, [such as] reshoring and apprentice programs.”
He added that rather than focusing on tariffs, the Trump administration should be looking at competitiveness through lowering the value of the dollar (making U.S. imports more attractive abroad) and investing in job training and education.
“Between these two actions tariffs would not be needed,” Moser said. “Without skilled workforce, tariffs will fail.”
Ronald Reagan, in 1988, signed the bi-partisan bill creating the MEP network, seen at the time as an important piece of support for U.S. manufacturers facing competition from Japan. Since then, every state in the country and Puerto Rico have founded programs.
NIST estimates that in 2024, MEPs saved manufacturers $2.6 billion, generated $5 billion in manufacturing investments and created or retained 108,000 manufacturing jobs.
Vasko said some MEP programs are very well funded and could survive without federal supports, although they will likely have to cut some services and increase how much they charge to clients. Others will likely close. So, he added, now is a good time for manufacturing leaders to reach out to lawmakers in the House and Senate and urge them to protect the MEP system.
“We’re hoping that we can convince people that this is probably the wrong move right now given amount of manufacturing that’s going to be back on our doorstep,” Vasko said.
