At a Business Roundtable convened by the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) in Milwaukee, United States, Union Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal made a direct pitch on Wednesday, 30 September 2026 — urging American manufacturers, both large and small, to plant deeper roots in India and co-build the supply chains the world is scrambling to diversify.

The ask from the factory floor

Goyal's message was unusually concrete for a diplomatic circuit stop. He invited US manufacturers to do three specific things: deepen their presence in India, partner with Indian small and medium enterprises (SMEs), and co-invest in advanced manufacturing to forge resilient supply chains. The framing — 'value for both economies' — was deliberate, positioning India not as a recipient of foreign capital but as an equal architect of a shared industrial future.

NAM represents the broadest cross-section of American manufacturing, from family-owned machine shops to Fortune 500 industrial giants. Getting that room's attention matters — these are the decision-makers who authorise factory relocations, supplier contracts, and decade-long capital commitments.

Why Milwaukee, why now

The timing is no accident. US policy has spent the last several years aggressively pushing 'friend-shoring' — redirecting supply chains away from concentrated single-country dependencies toward trusted allied economies. India, with its Make in India initiative (launched 2014) and a rapidly expanding industrial workforce, has positioned itself as the natural beneficiary of that shift.

The India-US Trade Policy Forum, established in 2005, provides the formal bilateral scaffolding for this kind of engagement. More recently, the Initiative on Critical and Emerging Technology (iCET), announced in 2023, specifically opened cooperation channels in advanced manufacturing and supply chains — precisely the language Goyal used in Milwaukee.

Indian SMEs at the centre of the pitch

Notably, Goyal explicitly called out Indian SMEs as potential partners — not just large conglomerates. This signals a maturing pitch: India is no longer only selling cheap labour or land; it is offering an ecosystem of mid-sized, capable manufacturers that can slot into American supply chains as genuine tier-two and tier-three suppliers. That's a harder sell, but a far more durable one if it lands.

The roundtable adds momentum to a visit that underscores how actively New Delhi is working the American business community at every level — not waiting for capital to find its way to India, but going directly to the rooms where investment decisions are made.

The real test arrives when boardrooms translate roundtable handshakes into signed agreements — and India's ability to cut through regulatory friction will determine whether Milwaukee's momentum becomes Milwaukee's legacy.