Michael Barbaro

That's it for The Daily.

I'm Michael Barbaro.

From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro.

This is The Daily.

The construction of a massive factory in Arizona was supposed to embody the Trump administration's ability to bring manufacturing back to the U.S.,

Instead, as my colleague Peter Goodman found out, it's provided companies around the world with literally 18,000 reasons to think twice about building in America.

It's Monday, December 22nd.

Peter, good of you to come into the studio.

Delighted.

I wonder, just to start this conversation, if you can describe this factory that you recently visited to us.

Yeah, sure.

What does it represent, this gargantuan, crane-filled factory-ville?

So it would seem like a very, very big and...

overdue thing to have such a factory building those chips right here in America.

So, Peter, tell us the story of this factory and all the ways in which it suggests a potential future or perhaps the impracticality of that future.

Right, and in a sense, the pandemic was a potential theoretical foretaste of what it would be like if all of a sudden China were to invade Taiwan because it showed us what it looks like when your global supply chains get cut off.

Suddenly, we have to grapple with the idea that maybe all those computer chips can't ever get out of Taiwan.

And what does that insurance actually look like?

That's a really, really big deal given just how much of that...

work was concentrated in Taiwan.