(Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Ahead of the Trump administration imposing a hefty 104% tariff on Chinese imports, the White House insists the US has the “resources” to manufacture Apple iPhones domestically, even though analysts have long dismissed the idea as a pipe dream.
During a Tuesday briefing, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump "believes we have the labor, we have the workforce. We have the resources to do it."
This comes after US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said the tariffs are designed to bring manufacturing jobs to the US, citing iPhone production. "The army of millions and millions of human beings screwing in little, little screws to make iPhones, that kind of thing is going to come to America. It’s going to be automated,” he said during an interview with CBS’s Face the Nation.
(Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)In February, Apple announced a $500 billion investment in US manufacturing facilities. But that's for servers, chips, and R&D to power Apple’s push into generative AI, not consumer devices.
Apple has long made iPhones in China through contract manufacturer Foxconn due to the country’s cheap, plentiful, and technically skilled labor. The Chinese market is also home to an extensive IT supply chain that can easily source more workers while routing raw materials and components and converting them into finished goods for shipment to world markets.
“The popular conception is that companies come to China because of low labor cost. I’m not sure what part of China they go to, but the truth is China stopped being the low-labor-cost country many years ago,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said in December 2017.
“The reason is because of the skill, the quantity of skill in one location and the type of skill it is,” he added. “Like 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.”
(Photo by VCG/VCG via Getty Images)During his first term, Trump also pushed for Apple products to be made in the US. But little came of it. Currently, about 80% of iPhones are produced in China, 16% in India, and 4% in Brazil, according to the research firm Canalys.
On social media, other critics argue that iPhone manufacturing jobs in the US would be low paid. According to July 2024 report from BusinessKorea, Foxconn advertised jobs at its Zhengzhou factory at up 25 yuan (about $3.41) per hour, with potential bonuses around $1,000. In the US, minimum wage rates vary from $5.15 (Georgia) to $17.50 (Washington, DC).
Still, the White House says it's crucial for the US to manufacture its own essential products rather than rely on foreign providers.
“The president wants to increase manufacturing jobs here in the United States of America,” Leavitt said during Tuesday's briefing. “But he’s also looking at advanced technologies. He’s also looking at AI and a number of emerging fields that are growing around the world that the United States needs to be a leader in as well.”
In the meantime, Leavitt confirmed that Trump will raise tariffs on Chinese imports to 104% starting on Wednesday after Beijing refused to withdraw its own tariffs on US goods. Trump’s reciprocal tariffs on dozens of other countries, including Vietnam, Taiwan, and India also take effect tomorrow.
The White House says about 70 countries have approached the US about negotiating trade deals to potentially end the tariffs. But as Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) noted in a Senate Finance hearing with US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer today, negotiating the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement alone took two years. "Let's be realistic," she told Greer.