Manufacturing Extension Partnerships Face Uncertain Future as Trump Pulls Funding
Editor's Note: This article has been updated at Manufacturing Extension Partnerships Regain Funding, for Now.
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.
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 Initiative 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.