Why Apple still can’t make the iPhone in America

The Verge Nov 5, 2026 15:00 1 min read 1 reads

Economist Willy Shih on the hidden supply chains costs of the AI boom and why Trump’s tariffs failed to bring manufacturing back to America.

The hidden supply chain costs of the AI boom

Economist Willy Shih on his new book Where Does My Stuff Come From?, RAMageddon, and why we still can’t make the iPhone in America.

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by Nilay PatelNov 5, 2026, 3:00 PM UTC

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Nilay Patel is editor-in-chief of The Verge, host of the Decoder podcast, and co-host of The Vergecast.

Today, I’m talking with Willy Shih, an economist, a professor of management practice at Harvard Business School, and the author of the upcoming book, Where Does My Stuff Come From? The Powerful Economics Behind Global Supply Chains.