How Polis, Newsom, and other Western governors can “get tough” on China

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The same day this week the Washington Post reported the Trump administration was “trying to block billions of dollars for states to conduct testing and contact tracing in the upcoming coronavirus relief bill,” Colorado Governor Jared Polis was encouraging the opposite, stating flatly, “The national testing scene is a complete disgrace,” while slamming the federal testing strategy as “almost useless from an epidemiological or even diagnostic perspective.”

For a Western governor to be sideways with President Trump isn’t unusual. From Oregon to California to New Mexico, COVID-19 continues to widen the Grand Canyon-like political divide in the West.

Ironically, COVID also provides a means for political adversaries to rally around shared interests. Manufacturing has emerged as one. However unlikely it is that President Trump will work with Polis, or California Governor Gavin Newsom, or New Mexico’s Michelle Lujan Grisham in an election cycle, in theory each state has much to offer a Trumpian “get tough” strategy on China, namely by helping companies locate more production here.

Governors can’t set U.S. trade policy, but they can provide a road map for federal policymakers. Here are three things western Governors can do to support local manufacturing and chip away at China’s stranglehold on hosting U.S. companies.

1. Work with local companies, one by one, to develop domestic productions strategies. America’s governors are in a unique position. They interact with influential companies — every day. It’s part of the job description.

What’s been lacking are sustained conversations about why local companies and brands offshore production. If this wasn’t the case, there would be more local manufacturing.

A new approach would first acknowledge the uncomfortable truth that U.S. brands have made China a manufacturing superpower. If U.S. companies and brands were key to China’s manufacturing ascendance, so too are they at the center of any American renewal.

Governors can be local manufacturing’s most powerful advocates. One company at a time.

2. Make manufacturing-related R&D a priority. America’s research ecosystem is formidable, but to assume technology acumen translates into manufacturing-related leadership in automation and robotics is misguided.

Arthur Herman’s Wall Street Journal op-ed this week referenced a 2015 Strategy& and PwC study that found “found that U.S. companies were steadily moving their research-and-development centers to China to be closer to production, suppliers and engineering talent.”

It’s a troubling conclusion. The lesson for governors is that a strong manufacturing base is vital to maintaining a world-class R&D ecosystem.

Ensure there’s a connection between universities, labs, and manufacturers. Host events. Facilitate conversations. Put our R&D ecosystem to work for manufacturing.

3. Encourage and subsidize local buying. Products made in the U.S. are often more expensive than those made offshore. Why? Because labor is less expensive.

But the cost of not supporting jobs and infrastructure here, to save a few dollars, can’t be measured. Governors have a bully pulpit to educate and rally citizens to buy locally made products and legislators to subsidize local production. They should use it. It’s a winning, bipartisan issue.

“Getting tough” on China is election-year sloganeering. Deep, strategic partnerships shape Sino-American business and economic ties. Yet for every U.S. brand that leaves China to invest in American workers and communities, China’s influence wanes.

Presidents Obama and Trump both used the office to advocate for domestic production. It’s left to governors and local officials to fill in the gaps and drive a U.S. manufacturing resurgence that works to shift the balance of economic power to America’s shores.

Bart Taylor is publisher of CompanyWeek. Reach him at btaylor@companyweek.com.

COVID-19 provided an opportunity to rebuild CompanyWeek.com. What’s your plan?

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For the CompanyWeek team, July feels like January. We’ve used the COVID-19 disruption to invest in both a redesign of CompanyWeek.com and a new supply-chain portal — SCoP. We launched our new site Monday, as the summer turned and as many companies look to the second half of 2020 as a new beginning. SCoP’s around the corner.

If the site is better — improved search, less clutter, better organization of our content, and with SCoP a fundamental realignment of how suppliers are sourced — our efforts are also a response to the shifting ground for U.S. manufacturing.

A common sentiment today is that COVID disruptions will translate to opportunity for domestic manufacturing. And to be sure, factors have aligned to favor U.S. production.

Yet for many companies, across multiple industries, shortening supply chains or locating domestic factories is more talk than reality. As much as we’d like, and despite the interests arrayed to bring back pharmaceutical and PPE manufacturing, many U.S. brands and buyers will fall back on trusted, cheaper suppliers in Asia.

The bar is even higher for other industries.

In a terrific expose on the challenges facing outdoor industry brands, Outside writer Christopher Solomon’s “How the Outdoor Industry Responded to Coronavirus” points out OI’s China addiction, one we’ve reported on for years:

Jump on the manufacturing bandwagon — or else!

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We’re all righteous in our indignation.

Last April, after years of encouraging former Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper to lean on his industry experience to take up the cause for manufacturing, I gave up. At the time, Hickenlooper’s presidential campaign, devoid of even a mention of his manufacturing experience, had crashed.

I lamented the missed opportunity: “John Hickenlooper was a craft-brewing pioneer. He helped reimagine craft manufacturing in Colorado and make it fashionable again, demonstrating its power to reshape urban economies, create opportunities for passionate entrepreneurs and reshape entire industry sectors. . . . I envisioned talk of the virtues of shortening supply chains to bring jobs home, of providing pathways for families and kids into the trade, and of a new economy where U.S.-engineered and -designed products are increasingly made here.”

But I was wrong about Hickenlooper’s affinity or connection with manufacturing. If not wrong, judgmental. Advocacy for manufacturing is a cause I share with some, but not everyone.

Today, candidate Hickenlooper harkens back to his “restaurant experience,” not his beer-making chops, when talking of his business acumen. He identifies with his service background more than any manufacturing pedigree.

And that’s OK. I look back on my rather harsh pronouncements and cringe a bit.

Would a Hickenlooper campaign focused on manufacturing be relevant and powerful now? Yes. COVID-19 has thrust these very issues to the forefront of the national conversation. A different choice in 2019 might have positioned him perfectly for a Senate run.

It is heartening, I admit, to witness the wave of legislative efforts and business initiatives to reshore manufacturing, or promote more domestic production, in light of COVID-related disruptions. Tariffs, or IP theft, or other challenges that companies encounter managing global supply chains might have been the trigger, but weren’t. Whatever it takes.

For those inclined to jump the bandwagon, I’d encourage a wide view. Sure, rebuilding America’s manufacturing supply chain is about competing with China. But more, it’s about investing in American towns and cities and workers; about recapturing the unseen virtues of family-owned companies that span generations; about supercharging American ingenuity and sustaining a legacy of invention and innovation that only manufacturing fuels; about Ford and John Deere and Hewlett-Packard and Coca-Cola and the hundreds of American-made brands that brought us this far.

It’s these positive attributes that must shape our perspective on U.S. manufacturing, just as incentives, not tariffs, should guide efforts to convince American companies to reshore production, or cite it here in the first place.

We won’t be endorsing a particular candidate for the Senate, or for president for that matter, but we’ll certainly point out when elected officials distinguish themselves as manufacturing advocates, or not. It’s not too much to ask of any elected official to articulate their strategy to sustain manufacturing, both nationally and in our local communities.

For my part, more support and less snark seems an appropriate tactic, given the times. A different outcome would be a just reward.

Bart Taylor is publisher of CompanyWeek. Reach him at btaylor@companyweek.com

Five steps to help U.S. OEMs and brands hire more domestic suppliers

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In 2013, we were a contrarian voice forecasting that headwinds battering U.S. manufacturing were subsiding and that an extended period of expansion was imminent.

But even we couldn’t have anticipated that, by June 2020, America would be united in its support for a full-on manufacturing comeback. Turns out COVID-19 is only the latest episode in a string of events that’s persuaded U.S. companies and business leaders that more domestic manufacturing serves our interests.

There’s also consensus on what needs to be done. We know we need more qualified workers. We agree that manufacturing’s digital transformation including automation and robotics must accelerate. And we support elected officials favoring industry with policy measures like the Beat China Act and others that provide incentives for companies to make more products here.

But these broad initiatives take time, and next week, or next month, when a production order needs to be filled, for many companies it will be back to business as usual. More needs to be done to compel OEMs and brands to change their behavior and consider new sourcing options.

U.S. manufacturing will roar back only when companies begin buying more services and products from domestic suppliers. Here are five things that would help:

1. Rally around manufacturing industries with clusters of suppliers and providers

Brands like Vestas and Tesla attract a constellation of suppliers — clusters of fabricators and service companies tuned to their needs. The supply chain for a small food brand (or battery maker or aviation OEM) is also unique.

Leadership in developing new industry-tuned clusters of suppliers, from funding through fabrication to shipping, should pay off in renewed interest and support from U.S. brands.

2. Build on local and regional success to expand nationally

If a growing marketplace of ideas, of products and services, is the national goal, success will first come from local and regional groups making new connections. More local collaboration, more transparency within industry supply chains, and more buying and selling across trade silos is the sure path to a more capable national network — and more options for OEMs.

3. Digital tools to power communication throughout the supply chain

A relationship between manufacturer and supplier pivots on any one of a dozen key variables. Again, companies tend to fall back on what’s known. Mapping the capabilities of domestic suppliers is hard enough; sorting through others that also influence compatibility — like company history and culture — and communicating with new partners, even more so.

The next generation of digital tools that transforms the process of helping U.S. companies find the perfect domestic supplier network will be the first.

4. Manufacturing fluency: We need business and political leaders encouraging local brands to invest in people and communities here

Many elected officials don’t know, or don’t care, where local OEMs or brands manufacture. This must change. U.S. companies transformed China into an economic powerhouse. Today the decision of where a company will source a supplier is a choice between supporting communities offshore and communities here. Gauge our manufacturing fluency in this election cycle. If your candidate comes up short, make a different choice.

5. Tell the truth

Without a coherent national manufacturing policy, local and regional efforts can succeed but national efforts will fall short.

In 2013, many business and policy leaders pushed back on the notion that manufacturing was in America’s strategic interest. Be part of the solution — or bow out of the process.

Bart Taylor is publisher of CompanyWeek. Reach him at btaylor@companyweek.com.

OEMs, brands, contract manufacturers: Connect with local and regional companies to source and supply

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We’re inviting OEMs, brands, contract manufacturers, and key suppliers to communicate production and product updates in light of coronavirus-related disruptions. There is no fee for a 250-word submission with photography.

All submissions will become part of CompanyWeek’s new searchable supply chain directory — SCoP. Use this form to create a directly listing, post to the weekly Supplier Bulletin, and/or update your CompanyWeek profile. The Bulletin will ensure your company information is pushed out to CompanyWeek’s growing local and regional readership. The directory listing will ensure your company is searchable in the new SCoP directory, debuting in June 2020.

Today, we’re happy to enter your Supply Bulletin listing into the directory for you, if you’d like.

Send me a text document (no PDFs) that includes:

  1. The production capability or service your company needs — or — can provide OEMs, brands, or other manufacturers. Be specific – including the industries you serve.
  2. A suggested headline for your listing
  3. One or two photographs or images (optional)
  4. Contact information

As always, contact me with questions or comments.

Bart Taylor is publisher of CompanyWeek. Contact him at btaylor@companyweek.com.

We’re expanding the Supplier Bulletin: Get involved with SCoP, manufacturing’s new Supply Chain Portal

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Two powerful forces are reshaping U.S. manufacturing in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis:

  1. Broad support, finally, to fortify U.S. industrial supply chains to reduce the vulnerability of offshore disruptions, but more, to ensure investments in people, equipment, and technology are made in U.S. communities.

  2. A seismic shift in the way companies do business. In-person contact will be limited in the future. Businesses must adjust to a “distancing” world.

Both are at the center of CompanyWeek’s new supply-chain initiative called SCoP — short for Supply Chain Portal. Our mission is to connect OEMs and brands with local or regional suppliers to enable more domestic manufacturing, and do so with digital tools that help overcome the challenge of communicating in a post-COVID world.

SCoP — pronounced “scope” — is first a searchable directory of manufacturers, brands, and suppliers, starting with the 1,500 or so companies featured in CompanyWeek since 2013, and companies posting in the Supplier Bulletin. As an example, OEMs or brands will immediately be able to search from a directory of over 250 local or regional contract manufacturers we’ve already featured.

The SCoP directory will launch this June. Longer term, SCoP will be much more.

SCoP isn’t necessarily a new idea. But timing is everything. Plus, several things have been missing from directory projects to date: a focus on local and regional connections; value-add information and tools — like a CompanyWeek feature — that make more manageable the dozens of variables that go into forming meaningful partnerships; and emphasis on manufacturing’s diverse industries, each with unique supply-chain requirements.

Here’s how to be part of SCoP:

  1. If you’ve not been featured in CompanyWeek, use this short form to create a digital listing in the SCoP directory — and have your company publicized in the Supplier Bulletin. It’s a great way to provide a quick update to the marketplace and become part of the searchable directory. Here’s more information.

  2. Have your company featured in CompanyWeek. The feature will contribute to a rich digital profile in SCoP. Contact us directly.

  3. Update your CompanyWeek profile with industry information and capabilities here.

  4. Service companies: SCoP will include a searchable service directory. Use this form to submit a listing.

U.S. contract manufacturers and other suppliers have never been more capable. Product manufacturers and brands have never been more compelled to find local partners. It’s time to rebuild the U.S. supply chain — one relationship at a time, company by company, community by community. Connecting OEMs and brands with suppliers in the western U.S. from California to Utah to Colorado, is our first priority.

The time is now.

Coming this June.

Bart Taylor is publisher of CompanyWeek. Reach him at btaylor@companyweek.com.

All’s fair in the pursuit of Elon Musk’s innovative companies, but at what cost?

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Before California, Washington, Oregon, Colorado, and Nevada announced the Western States Pact last month to coordinate a “shared approach for reopening our economies” in response to COVID-19, states in America’s West had already formed a loose confederation. The informal union lacked a crisis of COVID’s magnitude to codify ties, and an official name, but the regional amity on display has been long in the making.

With one exception: Economic developers still work within state lines, and the self-interest that drives local economies encourages the active recruitment and poaching of companies from neighboring states.

No doubt local officials in Colorado were cheering on Governor Jared Polis last week when he jumped into the dustup in California between Tesla and Alameda County to curry favor with Elon Musk. That’s what governors do. They’re chief sales officers, they lead by example, and the example continues to be that all is fair in love and the pursuit of your neighbor’s major employers.

States in the West also smell blood in the water in California. Companies in the Golden State can be vocal about their frustration with the business environment. A litany of complaints is long and well documented, and the path from Denver, Salt Lake City, Phoenix, and Portland to Los Angeles and Oakland well-traveled by officials looking to lure away a trophy manufacturer like Tesla.

But in this case, it seems a poor choice, one that also works to undermine regional prosperity.

As we document weekly, OEMs and brands require capable supply chains. In Colorado, Polis’ enthusiasm runs headlong into the supply chain reality that today, the state is unequipped to support an automotive brand like Tesla.

“Colorado’s supply chain, in its current state, could not handle the Tesla requirement,” offers Larry Caschette, president of Westminster, Colorado-based Metalcraft Industries. “I was approached by Tesla when they were building the lines for the Model X, and they wanted us to build stamping tooling for their Fremont facility. They needed 150 auto body tools in less than six months. That would take Colorado metal stamping companies as a group years to accomplish.”

We report on California’s robust transportation supply chain regularly, including Tesla suppliers like San Leandro-based Scandic. Say what you will about California’s warts, but the state is dotted with advanced aerospace and automotive suppliers.

That’s not to say Colorado, and others, are far behind. But it’s a two- to five-year proposition, says Metalcraft’s Caschette, involving money and focus. “We would need access to capital and incentives to be successful, in my opinion, and lots of outside management and investment.”

“But I like where it’s going,” he adds. “We’ve needed a couple big industrials in the area forever — more Ball, Lockheed, Arrow, and Vestas-type companies. Our supply chain changed quickly when Vestas came to town. It seems the big boys — Magna, AutoDie, ITW, any of the big stamping supply chain vendors — go where the work is and quite quickly.”

That’s the formula Colorado’s Polis seems intent on following: Recruit nameplate OEMs, and a supply chain will follow. It’s also a formula that’s left the state’s manufacturing supply chain inadequate to support — and recruit — more companies.

There’s an alternative approach, linked to the promising economic drivers working to make a Western States Pact viable in the first place.

Even before COVID, OEMs and brands were bringing production back onshore where possible and looking to expand domestic production. COVID will accelerate the embrace of domestic supply chain development, and it happens that America’s Western states are flashing the industrial acumen to lead the U.S. into manufacturing’s new era. Forbes writer Anna-Katrina Shedletsky suggested that “COVID-19 requires the modernization of manufacturing.” Regional outposts throughout the West will lead the way.

More, consider manufacturing’s growth industries. From defense-related aerospace to innovations in transportation to food and beverage, bioscience, pharma, and chemicals, the West is poised to play a leadership role. America’s epicenter of mission-driven companies also tilts West. COVID is accelerating the move by dozens of companies to reconcile unsustainable, legacy offshore manufacturing strategies with brand promises made to customers.

Can Utah, or Colorado, or Arizona alone lead America into a brave new world of manufacturing? Can California?

The easy answer is no. States like Colorado and California need each other.

Governor Polis would best help Tesla by working with California Governor Gavin Newsom and others to assess gaps in the West’s manufacturing supply chain, and respond with focus and energy to develop a region-wide ecosystem that helps OEMs and brands bring production onshore from China, or enables local companies to tap resources in neighboring states in lieu of Asia or Europe.

Expand the Western States Pact to include economic programs that tap into the natural synergies of the region. And be leaders in developing a new American federalism, shaped by regional cooperation.

Bart Taylor is publisher of CompanyWeek. Reach him at btaylor@companyweek.com.

Why supply-chain matchmaking is a crucial next step, and how to accomplish it

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As gratifying it is to watch the country rally around manufacturing, new laws that would incent companies to reshore jobs, or require companies to source domestically, will run headlong into issues that force companies offshore in the first place, including the most obvious: an inability to find qualified, cost-effective suppliers in the U.S.

It’s why the sector’s next great challenge is to connect America’s importers — its product brands and manufacturers — with domestic suppliers that map to their needs, one by one, company by company.

Matchmaking is the short path to renewed expansion for U.S. manufacturing.

It’s not a new idea. Literally every trade or industry group has expended money or energy on supply-chain mapping. We continue to try, and fall short.

Understanding who is reshoring, and why, is an important starting point for a new approach.

Harry Moser is founder of the Reshoring Initiative (RI) and has studied the economics of offshore production for more than a decade. RI’s free tools like the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) Estimator is today helping companies do the math as it relates to moving jobs or investment dollars back to the U.S.

Moser has quantified reshoring activity throughout the past decade. “In 2010, the total for reshoring and FDI (foreign direct investment) was 6,000 jobs in that year, and by 2017, it had risen to 180,000 jobs in that year, up thirty times. In 2018, it fell off to about 150,000, and our preliminary numbers for 2019 say about 112,000 jobs, off a third from 2017 but still 20 times greater than 2010,” Moser explains.

Why the falloff later in the decade? Call it a hangover from the certainty of tax and regulatory cuts to the chaos of a trade war. “We went from talk of how good the tax cuts were to the uncertainty of tariffs,” says Moser. Still, he sees a quick recovery under certain conditions. “Our best belief is that if we can stabilize the trade war and get beyond coronavirus, the rate of reshoring and FDI both will pick up and in a reasonable time get back to the rates of 2017,” he says.

What types of companies will reshore in the future? Easy reply. “The companies that have been coming back,” says Moser.

Transportation has been a reshoring leader. “The big numbers are always in transportation equipment,” Moser explains. “When Toyota or Audi builds a new factory, they bring 10 suppliers with them — often 10,000 to 20,000 jobs.

“Then, typically, electronics, appliances, and machinery are active — all situations where there’s significant TCO economics that favor it,” he says. “Or products that may have significant trade costs associated with importing, frequent design changes, IP risks, or unstable or variable demand. Or where hidden costs other than price are a substantial part of the total cost.”

Finally, automation is crucial. “If you expect to bring it back, certainly you want to automate more than when it left, and preferably more automated than where it is in China or wherever it is, because we still have significantly higher labor costs here,” says Moser.

Fortunately, for Colorado, California, Utah, and other western states, the list of top reshoring industries correlates geographically with the industrial assets of the region. Compare the list of most active industries, below, to California and Colorado’s top pre-COVID-19 manufacturing growth industries:

Most jobs reshored, 2010-19 (Reshore Initiative, preliminary 2019 data):

  1. Transportation equipment
  2. Computer and electronic products
  3. Electrical equipment, appliances, and components
  4. Chemicals
  5. Plastic and rubber products
  6. Wood and paper products
  7. Apparel and textiles
  8. Fabricated metal products
  9. Machinery
  10. Medical equipment and supplies

Here are the top 5 employment sectors California, pre-COVID:

  1. Computer and electronic product manufacturing
  2. Food
  3. Fabricated metal product manufacturing
  4. Transportation equipment manufacturing
  5. Chemical manufacturing

Three of the top 5 sectors are trending up:

  1. Computer and electronic product manufacturing, +2.4 percent
  2. Transportation equipment manufacturing +13 percent
  3. Fabricated metal product manufacturing +2.4 percent

Largest employment sectors in Colorado manufacturing, 2018 (CompanyWeek/University of Colorado Leeds School of Business 2020 Business Outlook Report)

  1. Food
  2. Computer and electronic products
  3. Fabricated metal
  4. Machinery
  5. Miscellaneous
  6. Beverage

Fastest growing Colorado sectors/Top Gainers (total employees):

  1. Beverage manufacturing (up 4.1% year-over-year — 31st nationally)
  2. Machinery manufacturing (+4.5% — 19th nationally)
  3. Transportation equipment (+2.75% — 30th nationally)
  4. Fabricated metal manufacturing +3.1% — 34th nationally)
  5. Food manufacturing (+2.2% — 13 nationally)

Here, then, is a different approach to matching companies in these industries to local partners:

  • First, map the contractors and suppliers well-positioned to support local importers and companies in these industries. This is no trivial exercise. Contractors have been slow to publicize their shops. Sewers have been asked by brands to maintain a low profile. We need to meet the suppliers working in our communities.
  • Same with original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and brands, by first acknowledging that these companies are integral to a region’s manufacturing community. Today, companies that design and engineer locally but manufacture offshore are largely ignored by the trade, even as they’re celebrated as “technology” or “bioscience” companies. Manufacturing’s small tent must get bigger. As Harry Moser suggests, “I’d get everyone in the same room — the job shops, the equipment manufacturers, the MEP (in California, CMTC; in Colorado, Manufacturer’s Edge), the economic developers, and say ‘Here’s 20 multinational companies, here’s the different product categories, here’s the the top 10 importers in each of the categories. Who has contacts at this company, in this product category?’ and go from there.”
  • Lastly, we need better tools to connect manufacturers with each other and the supply chain. As in-person events slowly come back, new enabling technologies that help companies locate and interact with new business partners, will be a catalyst.

We’re working on several new projects including the new Suppliers Bulletin, to better map and connect America’s supply chain as companies reshore or develop organically here.

We need your help, that is, your participation. Let us know who you are by submitting a suppliers listing. Our growing list is the basis for a new resource that will map the region’s capabilities to connect and advance the sector.

Bart Taylor is publisher of CompanyWeek. Reach him at btaylor@comapnyweek.com.

Fool me twice: Why COVID is the wakeup call that tariffs weren’t

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In August of last year, as tariffs were buffeting U.S brands, I wrote, “There may never be a better opportunity to rally the nation around a moonshot-like goal to reconstruct our manufacturing commons, our national means of production.”

I was wrong. COVID-19 is even a more compelling reason.

For years, consumer spending has powered the U.S. economy. Yet COVID is kryptonite: Spending will be a wild card for the foreseeable future as jobs and income stabilize. And of the many companies COVID will leave in its wake, manufacturers will be among them — companies and brands in food and beverage, in building and construction, in locally made gear and equipment — companies that thrive on a profligate consumer sector.

Which means capital investment and business-to-business spending in the U.S. now takes on a new level of urgency. If there was ever a time to reassess investments we make in human capital and infrastructure in manufacturing outposts in China and elsewhere, it’s now. American communities need jobs and business spending, the sooner the better.

Tariffs should have been a lesson. Chinese industrialists decided early in the trade war to pivot from strength in basic consumer manufacturing to higher-value advanced manufacturing in order to offset American leadership in those areas. The U.S. has no such plan.

This past January, I quoted the Wall Street Journal‘s John Stoll, who at that time said that tariffs largely reinforce “sentiment that has simmered for years over the low flame of China’s rising labor costs, forced technology transfers and intellectual-property theft.” If tariffs fueled a simmer for companies manufacturing in China, COVID has ignited a raging fire.

What to do? Today we’ve run out of excuses to fight for relief from tariffs instead of new manufacturing infrastructure, to buy a cheaper offshore option instead of paying a few dollars more for a U.S.-made product, or to bypass the opportunity to look for U.S.-based suppliers. Our communities depend on us making different choices.

Here, we start by encouraging U.S. manufacturers and brands to support domestic suppliers and sourcing options. If qualified suppliers are tough to find locally, then regional or national options are the next best thing. In today’s Supplier Bulletin, companies from New York, Michigan, and Pennsylvania took the time to publicize their solutions. We should welcome more.

Here’s the growing list of companies available to fill orders, or provide consumer options with products they make. List your company, or tell us what you’re making. And let small tactics that support U.S. manufacturing blossom into a strategy that carries us back from crisis and lays a foundation for the future.

Bart Taylor is publisher of CompanyWeek. Email him at btaylor@companyweek.com.

Related from Bart Taylor:

Leadership lacking in competition for manufacturing leaving China

China’s pivot from tariffs a lesson for U.S manufacturing

Ordered to leave China, American manufacturers must shoot for the moon

Sent packing by the PPP

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My Payroll Protection Program (PPP) experience was over before it started.

On the evening before the April 3 opening of the program, I’d gathered information for the application and documented payroll expenses per the language in the CARES Act, that stated:

“Payroll costs include the total amount of any compensation to (1) employees in the form of a salaries, wages, commissions, cash tips, payments for leave, severance, group health care benefits, retirement benefits, or state or local taxes assessed on employee compensation, and (2) a sole proprietor or independent contractor in the form of wages, commissions, income or similar payments not to exceed $100,000 per sole proprietor or independent contractor in one year prorated for the covered period.”

The language was a relief. My company is comprised of a network of talented independent contractors, of editors, writers, designers, and photographers who bring CompanyWeek to life each week. We’re gig professionals and entrepreneurs. If anyone needed a reminder of the importance of this segment of the economy, COVID-19 has provided it.

Yet not in time, apparently, to be sent packing. On Friday morning, as the first applications were funneling through banks, the Small Business Administration (SBA) moved the goalposts. Responding to a wave of questions about the program from confused businesses and advisors, the SBA posted its own Q&A, including this nugget:

Do independent contractors count as employees for purposes of PPP loan calculations?

No, independent contractors have the ability to apply for a PPP loan on their own so they do not count for purposes of a borrower’s PPP loan calculation.

Rejected. No employees, no payroll costs, no PPP loan. As a practical matter, the guidance killed plans that would have enabled me and others to keep a staff and payroll together, to provide certainty for gig entrepreneurs who rarely have it. Left alone, the original stipulation would have also saved the system from hundreds of thousands of additional applications from sole proprietors and freelancers.

The SBA must have feared duplicate submissions. It’s a hollow concern — and crippling distinction. I hope to have employees. But my company will always support freelancers, at least until I’m smart enough to build a media business immune to a foundation of quicksand. I’ve no idea what the media landscape holds for me in 18 months, let alone a reasonable term of a small business loan.

I do know our mission is sound. Manufacturing keeps us motivated — me and the cadre of journalists reporting on America’s innovative and lately, highly appreciated, maker community. COVID-19 is only the latest in a series of existential threats to the U.S. economy that underscore the importance of American manufacturing.

Today elected officials and wonks who do their bidding pick winners as if a command and control economy were the American norm. On one hand I support it. That status quo wasn’t working for manufacturing. I’ve argued for specific targeted tools that enhance U.S. manufacturing competitiveness and juice growth industries that would create new and sustaining jobs.

But today a new skill determines whether small business succeeds or fails — the ability to navigate a sometimes arbitrary command bureaucracy to score the grants and loans and advise that have become a variable for success.

I’d prefer my PPP failure not be a badge of honor in a losing cause.

Bart Taylor is publisher of CompanyWeek. Reach him at btaylor@companyweek.com.