The Manufacturing Report

The Manufacturing Report
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Manufacturing is having a moment. But what will it actually take to create more blue-collar jobs and strengthen our industrial base? Alliance for American Manufacturing President Scott Paul chats with policymakers, manufacturing experts and factory workers to find out.

  1. 1d ago

    Are Amazon and Walmart Using AI to Make It Harder to Buy American?

    Erie Meyer was shopping for U.S.-made steel-toed boots for her brother when she kept finding Amazon and Walmart listings with "Made in USA" in the title and "imported" buried further down the page. The former Federal Trade Commission and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau chief technologist joins Scott Paul to talk about what happened when she started asking the retailers' AI shopping assistants what they knew about “Made in USA” fraud. What Erie found left our jaws on the floor. Listen in as Scott and Erie dive deeper into the findings of her explosive Columbia Law School report and what should happen next, from FTC and state AG enforcement to a private right of action for consumers. 👉 Don't forget to like, comment, and subscribe for more stories on U.S. trade policy, buying American, and protecting American jobs. And sign our petition to bring shipbuilding back to America! https://act.americanmanufacturing.org/ships Guest Resources Made in America, Hidden by AI (Columbia Law School, Center for Law and the Economy): https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/law_economy/9 Resources & Links Sign up for our daily newsletter, Daily Digest or our bi-weekly version, ManufactureThis Check out our Made In America Directory And sign our petition to bring shipbuilding back to America! https://act.americanmanufacturing.org/ships You can also listen wherever you get podcasts Apple Podcasts Spotify Socials X: @KeepItMadeInUSA Facebook: www.facebook.com/americanmanufacturing Instagram: www.instagram.com/americanmanufacturing

    Are Amazon and Walmart Using AI to Make It Harder to Buy American?

  2. Sep 21

    Hundreds of Major Leaguers Wear This Belt Made in Small-Town Texas

    Hundreds of pro ballplayers are wearing belts made in a Texas town of 3,000 people. Matt Hadden is the third-generation president to run Pioneer Fit, a company his grandfather started in 1979 selling sports gear out of the back of his trunk in Nebraska. He joins AAM President Scott Paul today and shares how the business grew by taking on the custom work no other manufacturer wanted, and how one question from an employee — "Why don't we make baseball belts?" — opened that market in two seasons. He's also candid about what making things here costs: Pioneer's belts can run twice the price of an import, and both of the company's patents have been knocked off. He explains why he still buys American leather and American buckles anyway, and what that choice means for the people who work alongside him in the shop. 👉 Don't forget to like, comment, and subscribe for more stories on U.S. trade policy, buying American, and protecting American jobs. And sign our petition to bring shipbuilding back to America! https://act.americanmanufacturing.org/ships Guest resources Pioneer Fit: https://pioneerfit.com Resources & links Sign up for our daily newsletter, Daily Digest. or our bi-weekly version, ManufactureThis Check out our Made In America Directory And sign our petition to bring shipbuilding back to America! https://act.americanmanufacturing.org/ships You can also listen wherever you get podcasts Apple Podcasts Spotify Socials X: @KeepItMadeInUSA Facebook: www.facebook.com/americanmanufacturing Instagram: www.instagram.com/americanmanufacturing

    Hundreds of Major Leaguers Wear This Belt Made in Small-Town Texas

  3. Sep 7

    Union Workers on What Their Jobs Built and What They Stand to Lose

    At the height of a Washington, D.C., summer heat wave, members of the United Steelworkers came to town for the union's Rapid Response Legislative and Policy Conference — four days of talking legislation with lawmakers on Capitol Hill. AAM Media Relations Director Cat Adams grabbed a mic and went down to hear from the people who actually build things. Tire builders, welders, assemblers and machine operators talk about the first day they walked onto a factory floor, what their first paycheck bought, and what these jobs did for their towns. Scott Paul and Cat unpack what that means for trade enforcement, for the USMCA review now underway, and for whether Congress treats manufacturing as a drumbeat or a photo op. Workers heard in this episode: - Anthony Elrod - Goodyear, Topeka, Kan. - Diana Caspersen - Speed Queen, Ripon, Wis. - Bonnie Reese - Assembler, BAE Systems, Pennsylvania - Corey Ingram - BAE Systems, York, Pa. - Will Wilkinson - USW staff representative, Wyoming 👉 Don’t forget to like, comment, and subscribe for more stories on U.S. trade policy, buying American, and protecting American jobs. And sign our petition to bring shipbuilding back to America! https://act.americanmanufacturing.org/ships Resources & Links Sign up for our daily newsletter, Daily Digest. or our bi-weekly version, ManufactureThis Check out our Made In America Directory And sign our petition to bring shipbuilding back to America! https://act.americanmanufacturing.org/ships You can also listen wherever you get podcasts Apple Podcasts Spotify Socials X: @KeepItMadeInUSA Facebook: www.facebook.com/americanmanufacturing Instagram: www.instagram.com/americanmanufacturing

    Union Workers on What Their Jobs Built and What They Stand to Lose

  4. Aug 24

    This Detroit Apparel Factory Stitches Its Own U.S. Supply Chain

    He bought a $5 bill’s worth of beanies, sold them, bought more, and, eight years later, he’s manufacturing American-made knitwear in Detroit for brands you’ve heard of. Josh York, founder of Soft Goods, joins AAM President Scott Paul to talk about building a cut-and-sew factory in Corktown from scratch, teaching himself to sew off YouTube, and ruining roughly 100 T-shirts before one came out right. Josh also gets candid about the things most founders won’t say out loud: that sourcing domestically started as a practical decision, not an altruistic one; that he didn’t believe the business would work until year eight; and that after years of convincing buyers why American-made costs more, the market finally shifted and customers now come to him. 👉 Learn more about Soft Goods: https://softgoodsmfg.com 👉 Don’t forget to like, comment, and subscribe for more stories on U.S. trade policy, buying American, and protecting American jobs. And sign our petition to bring shipbuilding back to America! https://act.americanmanufacturing.org/ships Guest Resources Soft Goods: https://softgoodsmfg.com AAM Resources & Links 2025 Made in America Holiday Gift Guide: https://bit.ly/2025Gifts Sign up for our daily newsletter, Daily Digest: https://bit.ly/4iWbJga or our bi-weekly: https://bit.ly/4rXmh2Q Check out our Made In America Directory: https://bit.ly/4oUQRY7 You can also listen wherever you get podcasts Apple Podcasts: https://bit.ly/3XQ7glr Spotify: https://bit.ly/48PXG7d Socials X: @KeepItMadeInUSA Facebook: www.facebook.com/americanmanufacturing Instagram: www.instagram.com/americanmanufacturing

    This Detroit Apparel Factory Stitches Its Own U.S. Supply Chain

  5. Aug 10

    He Sold Everything to Make a Banjo in America

    What does it take to build a musical instrument company in America — with no woodworking background and a fear of power tools? Zack Munsell went from a sales job with “no passion” to founding Friendly Banjos, maker of a color-coded, easy-to-play banjo built for kids and beginners. Today, he joins AAM President Scott Paul, and shares his winding, cross-country journey learning from America’s artisan banjo makers, the painting that reshaped his entire mission, and why he was determined to build an affordable instrument in the United States. They discuss how Zack partnered with Massachusetts-based Magic Fluke to manufacture the banjo with locally sourced materials, went viral on TikTok, launched on Kickstarter, and how learning to make music became part of his own healing journey. 👉 Don’t forget to like, comment, and subscribe for more stories on U.S. trade policy, buying American, and protecting American jobs. And sign our petition to bring shipbuilding back to America! https://act.americanmanufacturing.org/ships Guest Resources https://www.friendlybanjos.com/ AAM Resources & Links Sign up for our daily newsletter, Daily Digest. or our bi-weekly version, ManufactureThis Check out our Made In America Directory You can also listen wherever you get podcasts Apple Podcasts Spotify Socials X: @KeepItMadeInUSA Facebook: www.facebook.com/americanmanufacturing Instagram: www.instagram.com/americanmanufacturing #MusicalInstruments #BanjoBuilding #EntrepreneurJourney #MadeInAmerica #Craftsmanship #KickstarterSuccess #MusicEducation #ArtisanCraft #HealingThroughMusic #ZackMunsell #HandcraftedMusic #SupportLocalArtists

    He Sold Everything to Make a Banjo in America

  6. Jul 27

    How One Viral Video Brought 600 Orders a Day — and This Utah Maker Wasn’t Ready

    Russ Warner just wanted an extra $400 a month for a car payment and to hang with his kids. Instead, a single TikTok from an Ohio teenager racked up 50 million views, buried his made-to-order skateboard business under 600 orders a day, and turned a Utah garage operation into a real American factory. AAM President Scott Paul talks with Russ Warner, founder of Ghost Boards, the maker of custom transparent acrylic longboards handcrafted in Utah. Russ shares how he and partner Brent Johnson went from cutting boards on a machine shop’s lunch break to selling $965,000 in boards in a single month, and why he still refuses to send manufacturing overseas. He discusses building fully customizable, made-to-order boards with no minimums, reaching a customer base that’s 68% female, and landing in retailers like Saks Fifth Avenue and Ron Jon Surf Shop. 👉 Don’t forget to like, comment, and subscribe for more stories on U.S. trade policy, buying American, and protecting American jobs. And sign our petition to bring shipbuilding back to America! https://act.americanmanufacturing.org/ships Guest Resources Ghost Boards: https://ghostboards.com Resources & Links Sign up for our daily newsletter, Daily Digest. or our bi-weekly version, ManufactureThis Check out our Made In America Directory And sign our petition to bring shipbuilding back to America! https://act.americanmanufacturing.org/ships You can also listen wherever you get podcasts Apple Podcasts Spotify Socials X: @KeepItMadeInUSA Facebook: www.facebook.com/americanmanufacturing Instagram: www.instagram.com/americanmanufacturing

    How One Viral Video Brought 600 Orders a Day — and This Utah Maker Wasn’t Ready

  7. Jul 13

    How One Man Brought the Western Shirt Back to America

    AAM President Scott Paul spent 15 years hunting for a Western shirt actually Made in America. He never found one — because almost nobody was making them. Carter Baldwin was on the same hunt, going back to his college days in ’90s Austin, and eventually decided to make the shirt himself. Brazos Fine Shirts is the result: 100% cotton, mother-of-pearl snap, made in the Los Angeles Garment District — and it took roughly six years, a career’s worth of DTC marketing know-how, and one catastrophic run of 1,000 shirts with the snaps pressed on backwards to get there. Carter walks Scott through why a Western shirt takes 24 hand-cut pieces and can’t be automated, how NAFTA hollowed out El Paso’s garment district, and how Post Malone’s stylist found the brand a month after launch. 👉 Don’t forget to like, comment, and subscribe for more stories on U.S. trade policy, buying American, and protecting American jobs. And sign our petition to bring shipbuilding back to America! https://act.americanmanufacturing.org/ships Guest Resources Brazos Fine Shirts: https://brazosfineshirts.com Instagram: @brazosfineshirts

    How One Man Brought the Western Shirt Back to America

  8. Jun 29

    How Detroit Built the Machine That Won WWII

    Detroit didn't just build cars. During World War II it built the machine that helped win the war. In the final installment of our three-part series on American manufacturing history — marking the 250th anniversary of the United States — AAM President Scott Paul visits the Detroit Historical Museum to walk through the story of the “Arsenal of Democracy” with the Detroit Historical Society's Director of Collections, Jeremy Dimick. They trace how the Motor City's auto plants pivoted to produce a B24 bomber every hour and more than 90% of America's M1 helmets, and how that effort remade the city of Detroit. 👉 Don’t forget to like, comment, and subscribe for more stories on U.S. trade policy, buying American, and protecting American jobs. And sign our petition to bring shipbuilding back to America! https://act.americanmanufacturing.org/ships Guest Resources Detroit Historical Society & Museum: detroithistorical.org AAM Resources & Links Sign up for our daily newsletter, Daily Digest: https://bit.ly/4iWbJga or our bi-weekly: https://bit.ly/4rXmh2Q Check out our Made In America Directory: https://bit.ly/4oUQRY7 And sign our petition to bring shipbuilding back to America! https://act.americanmanufacturing.org/ships You can also listen wherever you get podcasts Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-manufacturing-report/id1213359909 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3jAoV4AHejHd36wSjSEPMs YouTube: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0ETr3PZq7dHqAqlkiB17jvFe4gAtpLSf&si=uFmYHrp7lfxHepY6 Socials X: @KeepItMadeInUSA Facebook: www.facebook.com/americanmanufacturing Instagram: www.instagram.com/americanmanufacturing

    How Detroit Built the Machine That Won WWII
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About

Manufacturing is having a moment. But what will it actually take to create more blue-collar jobs and strengthen our industrial base? Alliance for American Manufacturing President Scott Paul chats with policymakers, manufacturing experts and factory workers to find out.

Information

  • Creator
    The Manufacturing Report
  • Years Active
    2017 - 2026
  • Episodes
    289
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © All rights reserved
  • Show Website
    The Manufacturing Report

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