White House insists iPhones will be US-made - but Apple calls it a non-starter
Source: The Guardian
Wed 9 Apr 2025 12.07 EDT
Last modified on Wed 9 Apr 2025 21.30 EDT
The White House is insisting that Donald Trump’s vision of Apple’s flagship iPhones being manufactured in the US will come to fruition, despite assertions from analysts and the company itself that it would not be possible.
The press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, told reporters during Tuesday’s briefing that the president believed Apple’s recently announced $500bn investment, as well as increasing import costs sparked by his trade tariffs, would encourage the company to ramp up manufacturing in the US.
“He believes we have the labor, we have the workforce, we have the resources to do it. If Apple didn’t think the US could do it, they probably wouldn’t have put up that big chunk of change,” she said. Trump doubled down on the claim on Wednesday, posting to his Truth Social network that: “This is a great time to move your company into the US, like Apple, and so many others, in record numbers, are doing. “Zero tariffs, and almost immediate electrical/energy hook ups and approvals. No environmental delays.”
The problem, according to experts, including Apple’s chief executive, Tim Cook, and his predecessor, the late Steve Jobs, is that the US does not have the workforce of other nations where the vast majority of its electronics are currently manufactured, such as China, which makes about 85% of iPhones, India and Vietnam.
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/09/trump-apple-iphones-made-in-usa
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Quoting a speech he gave in China...
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The products we do require really advanced tooling, and the precision that you have to have, the tooling and working with the materials that we do are state of the art. And the tooling skill is very deep here. In the U.S., you could have a meeting of tooling engineers and I’m not sure we could fill the room. In China, you could fill multiple football fields.
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The vocational expertise is very very deep here, and I give the education system a lot of credit for continuing to push on that even when others were de-emphasizing vocational. Now I think many countries in the world have woke up and said this is a key thing and we’ve got to correct that. China called that right from the beginning.
So basically, the U.S. doesn't have what it needs to produce iPhones in quantity, no matter HOW much you're willing to pay to make it. The people and the skill sets aren't here. Now, maybe if we accepted a lot more immigrants...
, But also, from what I read elsewhere, even what we do have is scattered all over the country, whereas in China, as alluded to above ( "in one location" ). there are geographic areas where basically everything a company like Apple needs is located together. Huge numbers of people with the needed skills, and also, the related industries/factories nearby. I guess the kind of thing that comes with central planning.
Simply saying "we'll just pay more for labor, and then we can make it here" doesn't solve these problems.
