I got an email over the weekend introducing Manufacting Central, which seems designed to help find manufacturers in India. Currently, they only offer manufacturers for the Apparel & Home category.
I don’t know how long this was in the works, but the timing certainly seems like a reaction to tariffs and counter tariffs on China. Still, assuming this program actually works as designed and isn’t all broken to hell, it could be good for sellers to have access to other manufacturing markets.
I didn’t, but it sounds like Amazon wants to use your money to vet potential suppliers for them. If it works out, they’ll be happy to compete against you as they already know your supplier.
India is in scope of tariffs so don’t think it’s that.
Sellers that got this are probably in a specific category at a specific volume (higher than the avg bear).
The rule of thumb (as you know), is to give Amazon the least possible information about your business, including your sources / COGs.
The devil will be in the details.
Amazon could make this very attractive if it adequately vets the manufacturers, sets quality control standards, provides independent inspectors, and performs a mediation functions when disputes arrive.
As always, there is the question about what the quality of the Amazon involvement will be.
Given the reductions in Amazon’s number of private labels and the number of private label Amazon products there might be less risk than a few years back to having Amazon know your business.
Well, @HobbesIsMyTiger , this is interesting given what you seem to sell versus products the program seems to address. 
Some more info:
The disconnect was not lost on me. I have no idea why I received this notice, nor do I have any use for it.
Given the product line you manage (@ least when obstinate co-workers aren’t throwing monkey wrenches into the works, dadgummit), I suspect that our friend ASV is correct in this presumption: