The claim is factually accurate, but its framing creates a misleading impression.
The Claim
Launched an Onshoring Portal to connect small businesses with a network of more than one million domestic suppliers and producers.
The Claim, Unpacked
What is literally being asserted?
Three factual assertions: (1) the administration launched a portal, (2) the portal connects small businesses with domestic suppliers and producers, and (3) the network contains more than one million suppliers and producers.
What is being implied but not asserted?
The claim implies the administration built something new and substantial — a government-created network of over a million suppliers that didn’t exist before. The word “launched” suggests original creation. “Network” suggests an integrated, interconnected system rather than a collection of links. The framing positions this as a major accomplishment in the “CHAMPIONING AMERICAN WORKERS AND AMERICAN INDUSTRY” section, implying it has meaningfully advanced onshoring.
What is conspicuously absent?
There is no mention that the “portal” is a single webpage linking to four pre-existing private-sector supplier directories that have operated for years to decades independently. There is no mention of usage statistics, adoption rates, or any measurable outcome. There is no acknowledgment that the NIST Manufacturing Extension Partnership has offered supplier scouting services since 1988. There is no information about whether a single small business has actually onshored production as a result of the portal.
Evidence Assessment
Established Facts
The SBA Onshoring Portal exists and is live at sba.gov/onshoring. The portal, branded “Make Onshoring Great Again,” is described as “a free tool from SBA” that helps “connect businesses with verified U.S. manufacturers, producers, and suppliers.” The page is currently operational and publicly accessible. 1
The portal does not host its own supplier database — it links to four pre-existing private-sector platforms. The SBA page functions as a referral page connecting users to IndustryNet (operated by Manufacturers’ News, Inc., providing industrial data since 1912), Thomasnet (Thomas Publishing Company, founded 1898), CONNEX Marketplace (operated by i5 Services, a private company in Midvale, Utah, running for over a decade), and IQS Directory (a private industrial manufacturing directory). None of these platforms were created by the federal government. 2
The combined stated supplier counts from the partner platforms approach but do not clearly exceed one million, and likely involve significant double-counting. IndustryNet claims “over 350,000 U.S. suppliers.” Thomasnet claims “over 500,000 trusted American suppliers.” CONNEX claims “165,000+ manufacturers.” IQS Directory provides no count on the SBA page. The raw sum of the three stated figures is approximately 1,015,000 — but these are independent commercial directories listing overlapping sets of the same companies. A manufacturer listed on Thomasnet is very likely also listed on IndustryNet. The actual number of unique domestic suppliers across all four platforms is unknowable from available data but almost certainly less than the raw sum. 3
The NIST Manufacturing Extension Partnership has provided supplier scouting and domestic sourcing services since 1988. MEP, administered by the Department of Commerce, operates nearly 1,400 manufacturing advisors at more than 450 service locations nationwide. It offers a dedicated Supplier Scouting Opportunity Form for manufacturers seeking domestic sources. CONNEX Marketplace itself partners with the MEP National Network. The federal government’s supplier-matching function is not new. 4
Strong Inferences
The “one million” figure appears to be derived by naively summing overlapping commercial databases. The only way to reach “more than one million” is to add IndustryNet’s 350,000+ to Thomasnet’s 500,000+ to CONNEX’s 165,000+ and assume IQS Directory contributes the remainder. This treats each platform’s listing as representing a unique supplier, which is demonstrably false — these platforms compete to list the same U.S. manufacturers. The actual unique supplier count is likely substantially lower. 5
No publicly available evidence indicates measurable usage or outcomes from the portal. The SBA provides no usage statistics, no count of businesses served, no case studies of successful onshoring connections, and no metrics of any kind. The portal’s page itself contains no usage data. For a program listed as one of 365 “wins,” the absence of any outcome data is notable. 6
What the Evidence Shows
The Onshoring Portal is real, it is live, and it does what it claims at the most literal level: it provides links to platforms where businesses can find domestic suppliers. In that narrow sense, the claim is true.
But the substance behind the claim is thin. What the White House calls a “portal” connecting businesses to “a network of more than one million domestic suppliers” is, in practice, a single government webpage with four outbound links to commercial supplier directories that have existed for years to decades. IndustryNet’s parent company has been in the industrial data business since 1912. Thomasnet descends from Thomas Publishing, founded in 1898. CONNEX Marketplace has operated for over a decade. The government did not build these databases, does not maintain them, and does not operate them.
The “more than one million” figure is the most misleading element. It appears to be constructed by adding together the self-reported supplier counts of overlapping commercial platforms — a textbook denominator problem. These databases compete to list the same universe of American manufacturers. A machining shop in Ohio that lists itself on Thomasnet likely also appears on IndustryNet and CONNEX. The White House’s figure treats duplicates as distinct suppliers. The actual number of unique domestic manufacturers and suppliers is unknowable from the portal’s data, but the total number of manufacturing establishments in the United States is well under one million according to Census Bureau data — making a claim of “more than one million” domestic suppliers and producers plausible only if the definition is stretched to include every category of business or if duplicates across platforms are counted multiple times.
Meanwhile, the federal government has operated supplier-matching capabilities for nearly four decades through the NIST Manufacturing Extension Partnership, which has 1,400 advisors at 450+ locations. The Onshoring Portal adds a landing page to existing infrastructure, branded with a political slogan.
The Bottom Line
The Onshoring Portal exists and functions — it links to real supplier directories where businesses can find domestic manufacturers. The claim is not fabricated. But it dramatically overstates what was actually built. The “portal” is a single webpage with links to four private-sector platforms that predate the Trump administration by years to over a century. The “more than one million” supplier figure appears to double-count the same companies across overlapping commercial databases. And federal supplier-matching services have existed through NIST MEP since 1988.
This is a real but minor government action — creating a landing page that aggregates existing private-sector tools — presented as a significant policy accomplishment. The misleading elements are the inflated supplier count and the implication that this represents new infrastructure rather than a curated link page pointing to pre-existing commercial services.
Footnotes
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SBA Onshoring Portal, https://www.sba.gov/onshoring, accessed 2026-03-18. ↩
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SBA Onshoring Portal partner platform descriptions, https://www.sba.gov/onshoring, accessed 2026-03-18; IndustryNet homepage, https://www.industrynet.com, accessed 2026-03-18; CONNEX Marketplace, https://connexmarketplace.com, accessed 2026-03-18. ↩
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SBA Onshoring Portal, https://www.sba.gov/onshoring, accessed 2026-03-18; IndustryNet homepage, https://www.industrynet.com, accessed 2026-03-18; CONNEX Marketplace, https://connexmarketplace.com, accessed 2026-03-18. ↩
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NIST MEP About Page, https://www.nist.gov/mep/about-nist-mep, accessed 2026-03-18. ↩
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Analysis of stated supplier counts from SBA Onshoring Portal partner platforms, https://www.sba.gov/onshoring, accessed 2026-03-18. ↩
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SBA Onshoring Portal, https://www.sba.gov/onshoring, accessed 2026-03-18; SBA Manufacturing Page, https://www.sba.gov/manufacturing, accessed 2026-03-18. ↩