According to a report by The Guardian, the White House hopes that Apple’s iPhone will be manufactured in the United States, but analysts and Apple both believe this is not feasible.
Currently, due to new tariff legislation announced by the United States, Apple needs to pay high tariffs to the US government when iPhones manufactured in China and India enter the US market.
Trump believes this tariff bill will cause Apple to bring iPhone manufacturing back to the United States, realizing “Made in USA” iPhones.
Apple states that the United States lacks a sufficient number of highly skilled workers to support iPhone manufacturing in the US.
Some analysts say that the US lacks a complete manufacturing ecosystem and technological depth. Although the US tariff bill increases costs for Apple, it is far from enough to rapidly change Apple’s global supply chain layout.
As early as 2010, Steve Jobs stated in an interview that Apple had 700,000 factory workers and 30,000 on-site engineers in China, and bluntly said, “The United States cannot find so many talents.”
Tim Cook mentioned in 2017 that China’s advantage lies in the quantity and quality of skills, not cheap labor. Cook figuratively said that the United States might not even be able to fill a room with engineers for a meeting, while China could fill a stadium.
The report states that Trump believes the United States has the labor force, resources, and technology to support the domestic production of Apple iPhones.
However, experts refuted this assumption. Experts pointed out that the transfer of production and supply would take years of preparation to complete. Even India took three years to increase iPhone production to 14%.
Currently, one-fifth of iPhones sold in the United States are manufactured in India, while the rest are made in China.