Why it's so difficult to manufacture in the U.S.

At a 540,000-square-foot facility in Seymour, Indiana, Guardian Bikes is pulling off a unique challenge: making children’s bikes in America. The company says it produces about 12,000 bikes per week, a manufacturing feat that has become increasingly uncommon in the U.S.

“All the way back to World War II era, pretty much every bike sold in the United States was made in the U.S.,” said Guardian Bikes co-founder and CEO Brian Riley. “By the time you get to the ’70s, ’80s, ’90s, it all evaporated.”

Over the last four decades, many American factories have shut down as production moved overseas in search of cheaper labor and larger supplier networks. Between 1997 and 2023 the number of U.S. manufacturing firms and plants dropped by 25% as global trade barriers fell, according to the World Resources Institute.

Now, as companies like Apple

, IBM