Why does Mr. Trump believe he can 'bring the iPhone home'?

The US government is confident it will successfully bring iPhone production back home. Photo: Reuters .

Mr. Trump's massive 104% tariff on China will officially take effect from April 9 (US time, noon the same day Vietnam time). Previously, the tariff affected Apple's supply chain, causing its stock price to plummet.

However, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump is confident that Apple can move iPhone production back to the U.S. In response to the press, Ms. Leavitt said that through tax policy, Trump wants to increase the number of manufacturing jobs, but is also aiming for advanced technology.

“From traditional manufacturing jobs to high-tech positions. The president is looking at all of those sectors. He wants them to come back home,” Ms. Leavitt said at a press conference on April 8 evening.

Meanwhile, US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said that skilled American workers, high school graduates, will be working in high-tech factories. He said they will "witness the biggest wave of jobs recovery in American history".

Maggie Haberman, a reporter from the New York Times, continued to ask whether the type of technology to produce iPhones was available to bring back to the US. Ms. Leavitt replied that Mr. Trump was confident that the US had enough manpower and resources to do it.

She also mentioned Apple’s investment in the US around February, saying the company would spend $500 billion over the next four years. “If Apple didn’t think the US could do it, they probably wouldn’t be spending this much money,” Leavitt argued.

But that commitment makes no mention of iPhone assembly in the U.S. The press release focuses primarily on domestic research and development, chip manufacturing in Arizona, AI server manufacturing in Houston, Apple TV+ content production, and an institute in Michigan.

Commenting on this, 404 Media wrote an article stating that bringing iPhone production to the US is impossible. The most important reason is that the iPhone has an extremely complex supply chain, and producing this phone in the US would require a major restructuring.

Additionally, moving production back home would push up the cost of the iPhone. A Quora discussion hypothesized that if this were to happen, the iPhone could cost as much as $30,000 .

Spencer Hakimian, founder of hedge fund Tolou Capital, retweeted Secretary Howard Lutnick’s remarks, calling them “a sweatshop.” Other politicians have also said they think this is far from reality.

Apple CEO Tim Cook has spoken about the idea before, saying in 2015 that the number of mold and tool makers in the US could fit into one room, while the number in China would take up multiple football fields.

In 2017, he commented that China is no longer the cheap labor country it used to be. Apple products have extremely advanced manufacturing processes, with very high precision when working with special materials. And the workers here have reached very specialized skills, both in quality and quantity.

According to reports on April 7, Apple has been building up iPhone inventory in the US ahead of Trump’s new tariffs, which will help the company temporarily mitigate the impact of the tariffs and avoid having to raise prices. However, there has been no official response from Apple about its long-term plans.

Source: https://znews.vn/vi-sao-ong-trump-tin-co-the-mang-iphone-ve-nha-post1544430.html