Alphapointe is a nonprofit in the Marlborough neighborhood in south Kansas City, Missouri, that produces various American-made goods.
From the Kansas City Area Transportation Authority to Burger King, Alphapointe has a wide array of business partners.
"We are the supplier of prescription bottles of the Department of Veterans Affairs," said Reinhard Mabry, president and CEO of Alphapointe.
Ethan Whitehill is the president and chief strategy officer of Crux, a marketing agency in KCMO. He said that since the United States increased tariffs on products from around the world, more businesses and consumers are paying attention to American-made products.
"American-made implies American jobs, it means workforce development, it means local, economic impact, too," he said. "So, I think there's an awareness."
That's true at Alphapointe, where more than half the workforce is blind, according to Mabry.
"'Made in America' — that means people who are blind who are sitting on the sidelines getting an opportunity to get into the workforce, earn a living, provide for themselves and provide for their families," Mabry said.
But that doesn't mean tariffs won't have an impact on Alphapointe.
"We have gotten notices, 'Hey, look, we may have to go up in price,'" Mabry said.
That's because the Federal Trade Commission's regulation of "Made in America" labeling is a bit ambiguous.
"So, to claim it, you have to be either completely made or mostly made in America," Whitehill said.
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While many of Alphapointe's products are completely sourced, manufactured and assembled in the U.S., some products have components imported from other countries.
“Yeah, so tariffs are always a concern," Mabry said. "In addition to being a producer of plastic products, we’re also a sewn-goods supplier to the U.S. military.”
Mabry said some of the yarn Alphapointe uses is sourced from Mexico, and the wood it uses to make mops, brooms and brushes is imported from Canada.
Even still, Alphapointe sees tariffs on foreign goods as an opportunity to highlight its American-made goods when doing business.
“We see this as a tremendous opportunity for companies and for customers who want to offer onshore, who were buying offshore or buying overseas, who want to bring that manufacturing back to the U.S. and closer to their own needs," Mabry said. "We can be a tremendous benefit to that supply chain.”
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KSHB 41 reporter Lily O’Shea Becker covers Franklin and Douglas counties in Kansas. Share your story idea with Lily.