An increasingly erratic Trump is clueless about what it would take to move iPhones production to the US.
“I had a little problem with Tim Cook yesterday,” Trump said of his conversation. “He is building all over India. I don’t want you building in India.”
iPhone Logistics
Bloomberg comments on the iPhone Logistics.
oving manufacturing of its signature iPhone and other devices to the US would be an enormous undertaking for the Cupertino, California-based company.
Apple’s biggest FATP facilities — short for final assembly, test and pack-out — are massive and incomprehensible to many people outside of Asia. They are almost towns themselves, with several hundred thousand people, schools, gyms, medical facilities and dormitories. One major iPhone factory, a complex in Zhengzhou, has even been dubbed iPhone City.
Development of new iPhones and other products still starts at Apple’s labs in Silicon Valley. But working with Asia-based component suppliers and other partners begins long before a product actually hits the market. Apple engineers and operations experts spend months or years working closely with Foxconn Technology Group, Pegatron Corp. and other suppliers to customize assembly of new devices.
One popular counterpoint is that Apple should use its cash hoard to buy thousands of acres in the US and create a fully robotic and automated iPhone manufacturing facility. That would remove any human-related challenges from the manufacturing process, but supply chain experts say that is not realistic due to frequently changing demands. Also, much of the manufacturing equipment is made in China.
Trump on iPhones
Trump is totally clueless about who pays tariffs or how much it would cost if everything was made here.
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People will be buying iPhones while on vacation in Mexico, Canada, Europe or Asia.
This will significantly cut into taxes collected on a diminishing market.
Trump will be forced to make iPhones contraband if not accompanied by a made in USA certificate.
$4000 I phones will be hot items, particularly in the third world. This gets crazier every day.
Third world will not be paying tarrifs – only Americans.
No complaint here. I am extremely sick of people’s cellphone behavior whether in restaurants, on the road, everywhere else. Extremely uncivilized.
Trump is dumber than dumb. Even if Apple was built in the USA, who’s to say that other markets won’t put tariffs on Apple? One of the reasons many big firms manufacture in China is to sell into their market without tariffs. Trump medling is going to cause the down fall of Apple and many other American companies.
Can Trump legally set tariffs for specific and individual companies?
First, it’s Tim Apple, not Tim Cook. Let’s get that straight.
Second, Where is congress? I remember from School House Rock songs about congress and lonely ‘ol bills sitting on Capital Hill. But they seem to have either disappeared, gone into hibernation or have otherwise forgotten how to do their jobs. Maybe DOGE can look into docking their pay until they start doing work again.
Lastly, to hear some commenters whining about impeachment, where were you guys when president rigor mortis was stumbling into furniture looking for his night nurse? Nowhere.
We do have common ground that this needs to stop, but that means congress re-asserting its power that it has been handing to the executive for decades. Let me know when that happens. I’m sure it’s just around the corner.
Hopefully in between booster shots, PfizerSmithKleinMerck will develop a TDS shot. Not a cure but hopefully something that can lessen the symptoms.
Hopefully, everyone will remember the abdication of Republicans in Congress when voting time comes around.
Immediately, Comrade Trump!
You’ll be ok. I heard Pfizer is releasing it’s new TDS drug in pill format and bundling it with the booster shot. It’s the Pfizer valuepack!!
Trump’s world philosophy parallels Roman Emperor Caligula:
Brilliant thought. Fiddling while Rome burns.
I’m old enough to remember free-market republicans who didn’t tell companies where they should invest. I’m old enough to remember my outrage at Solyndra and “industrial policy”.
Yes. They are the ones who set up the tax code to make it stupid for companies not to offshore their manufacturing thereby eviscerating our manufacturing industries and devastating entire regions. They were the Mitt Romney types who believed in the “invisible hand” not because it was true but because it made them a lot of money. I am glad they are going away like Biden. Good riddance.
Trump is likely to do much worse than those RINOs you despise. Let’s check back in the history books in 50 years when Trump’s saturation of lies has eased up. You’re not gonna like the story.
I don’t know about the future but I saw what was happening. I had a ringside seat and saw their mentality and saw how they operated. Another few years of their rule and we would be a province of China but that idea didn’t bother them one iota as long as they made money.
Great point, Doug! Like you, I’m glad to see a new breed of Republican’s rising up. Let’s primary the Lindsey Graham’s of the GOP right out the door.
How does ZheYuanDongAmerica sound?
Not a fan personally.
Nixon’s wage and price controls policy certainly shows that republicans are not champions of the free market.
It was the free market that led to mega scale manufacturing in Asia. Business made more profit and the consumer got cheaper goods.
True believers in the free market can rejoice that it worked as it should.
Odd that when the free market doesn’t work to the advantage of the US and the West in general, that there must be some fault with it.
Clueless, yes. And while you can’t fix stupid, there is a solution:
“Impeachment has been used to remove government officers who abuse the power of the office; conduct themselves in a manner incompatible with the purpose and function of their office; or misuse the office for improper or personal gain“
After two failed impeachment attempts???
Now he is untouchable and he knows it.
Mish – call this what it is – facist. This is exactly how a facist economy works.
No. That requires control of the media and neither side controls the media anymore although the Democrats did their best to do it bit failed.
I’ve been away for a while. Doug, you’re getting a lot of down votes. Conservative ideas must be in short supply around here. Yikes!
I’m sure I’ll get the same treatment ; )
Right, Trump thinks he is entitled to “Control the means of production” which I remember reading in lots of books over the years, and it was always called Fascism then, but now it has a GOP label, his voters call it ‘freedom fighting” and they literally don’t know their history well enough to tell the difference, or they are being willfully ignorant of basic economics.
Tell your congressman. they’re the ones sitting on their hands letting this happen.
Giving the rope with which to hang himself… along with the rest of us?
In Trump’s defense, they shifted massive production from China to India within months. If they can stand up production in India that quickly, they can do it elsewhere.
Does the US have 1 billion people willing to work for $3/day? Why do you think they picked India instead of Bolivia or Paraguay or Portugal?
Why does he think? HAHAHAHAHA best joke I’ve heard this week
It takes 1 billion people to make iphones? Wow, who knew.
If welfare was ended, that might happen. We do what we need to do to make a living. Many of us here have worked at horrible jobs for a living.
They could do it but don’t want to. Apple knows how to design but not to build. They have tremendous power over their suppliers and those who make the phones. If they build in the US they would have to bring their suppliers over to do it. When you lose your knowledge on how to make your product you are pretty much limited on what you can do.
Where do they realize oversees profits? Ireland?
Nobody oversees profits except the IRS
Would be nice if you could contribute rather than being facetious.
Do the math, Trump needs 300-500% tariffs targeting Apple specifically for it to make financial sense for them to come to the USA.
Apple read the writing on the wall a while ago and has been working on moving its production to India for years.
It would require product simplification, likely starting with greater use of plastics and adhesives while reducing the number of iPhone models and upgrade options to improve automation.
Apple will eventually take page out of the Indian cellphone business and consolidate to 3-4 iPhone tiers which would increase production efficiency, though storage upgrades has been their sacred cash-cow.
Tim Cook doesn’t really have to worry, Trump will be history in 1338 days. It would take Apple far longer than that to reconfigure the supply chain universe to make what Trump wants happen and it’s not worth it.
Apple will simply pass along those costs and maybe eat some along the way then just wait until the buffoon is out of office. Apple’s better off pouring billions into electing democrats that will bend to its will than spending billions building factories that would be too expensive to operate. You can’t compete against 1 billion Chinese or Indians working for $3 day.
It won’t just be apple, all those small businesses that were buying cheap and reselling stuff from China will vote him out as well.
Then we will have JD Vance.
Or AOC. lol, I make funny yoke.
Vance is Trump’s lapdog. He doesn’t have a chance of ever becoming President.
What did the polls say about Trump’s chances?
Did I mention polls anywhere?
Vance is Trump’s lapdog and a stone cold loser who changes his “beliefs” to fit the moment. He’s also on the edge of being divorced (AGAIN).
And don’t forget, he killed Pope Francis.
Nope.
Hard to present yourself as the party of labor if you are letting corporations buy you off in order to offshore jobs and dodge taxes.
Trump might be history in around 600 days when the 120th Congress is sworn in mid-January 2027.
What if tariffs increase to 50%? Would that make Apple worry? Are you advocating that even higher tariffs will be needed to make Tim Cook jump? A company can lose a lot of customers with four years of unreasonable price levels. The real joke here is that the total amortized cost per unit to create an Apple phone is well below $250, and Apple could eat a $125 50% tariff without blinking, with no change in consumer pricing.
He’s a moron, plain and simple.
This just in: Trump feeds entire White House and Eisenhower Executive Office Building staff with two fish and 5 sugar-free cakes (times have changed).
As Mel Brooks said: “It’s good to be the King.”
The sermons are somewhat lacking something however.
Mish,
Correction, Trump knows EXACTLY who pays the tariffs.
He’s just continually lying about it to every American.
I trust you already hear he plans to increase tariffs to 50% on the E.U. effective June 1 becuase negotiations are going nowhere.
I could’ve sworn he said a few weeks ago that he had already negotiated 200 trade deals and he would be finished with this Trump imposed tariff war in 3 to 4 weeks from that date.
Obviously, he was full of shit about that too.
Trump couldn’t legislate his agenda because by the time they even typed the bill for a vote he would have changed his mind. About all he can do is threaten companies and people. Of course now he also has the various departments of the government threaten and/or restrict any person, company, or institution that he doesn’t like. Such as cancelling Harvard’s ability to enroll foreign students. Next it will be the ability of some company to obtain or renew H1B visas.
He talks like an old mafioso.
This is all about Apple having their corporate HQ in Ireland to avoid paying US corporate taxes on their billions of dollars that remain offshore because to bring it into the US would mean it would be taxed here.
There is a reason it’s always about Apple and not Android phones.
Google isn’t really a hardware manufacturer. Yeah they sell Pixel phones but that’s a tiny slither of the market. Those phones are made overseas just like apple too.
https://hellosmartlife.com/where-is-google-pixel-manufactured/
Every multi-national company has an HQ in Ireland or Caymans or some other place for tax avoidance, it’s not just Apple.
Yes but Apple is one of the biggest AND its an American company.
When I said Android I mean the whole suite of Android phones, not specifically Google. In other words Samsung. Yet not a peep about Samsung receiving tariffs unless they manufacture here in the USA.
Design them in the US. Build them in Asia. Sell them in the US. Transfer intellectual property to a wholly-owned subsidiary in Ireland and book transactions there to avoid paying taxes. Use the money saved to buy back stock.
Apple is a financial company with a design bureau attached.
What a clown show.
Someone inform the geriatric mental POS he is not a dictator.
Massie did.
He will be soon enough though.
look out!! Dictator incoming!! You guys need to take your TDS pills.