President Donald Trump wants Apple to build iPhones in the US, no matter what. After easing tariffs for Cupertino, the US government now says the company needs to make iPhones in the country if it wants to sell them without a tariff.
While Apple considered moving its US iPhone production to India as soon as possible to avoid tariffs, the US president says it’s not enough. On a social media post, Trump wrote:
“I have long ago informed Tim Cook of Apple that I expect their iPhones that will be sold in the United States of America will be manufactured and built in the United States, not India, or anyplace else. If that is not the case, a Tariff of at least 25% must be paid by Apple to the US Thank you for your attention to this matter!”
In April, the US government announced the iPhone would be exempt from massive 145% tariffs on Chinese imports, though Apple still had to deal with a 20% “fentanyl tax” on its products.
When asked about making iPhones in the US at the time, Apple manufacturing engineer Matthew Moore told Bloomberg that Apple would need to employ an entire city the size of Boston to make iPhones in the US.
“What city in America is going to put everything down and build only iPhones?” Moore said. “Boston is over 500,000 people. The whole city would need to stop everything and start assembling iPhones.”
That’s the scale Apple needs to manufacture 200 million iPhones a year and serve the world. Apple’s largest manufacturing partner Foxconn employs more than 300,000 people in cities like Zhengzhou to manufacture the iPhone for Apple.
But say Apple would only have to manufacture tens of millions of iPhones yearly in the US, then sell them in North America. It would surely not need an entire city the size of Boston, right? It could keep some production in China and India, catering to the rest of the world.
In such a scenario, the company would still need to hire and train hundreds of thousands of American workers to manufacture iPhones. Apple would also need to pay higher wages to US workers.
Then there’s the fact that you must import practically all the components needed to assemble the iPhone in the US. Alternatively, you’d need to build additional factories in the US that manufacture critical parts, like the iPhone’s high-end chips, OLED panels, and metal casings. That would require an additional workforce, and Apple would still have to import raw materials.
Another issue is building factories to handle iPhone manufacturing and parts sourcing. You need specific facilities developed from the ground up, with materials that might incur extra tariffs at the border.
That said, what Apple might do regarding these new tariffs is unclear. While the iPhone 17 price is already expected to increase, it might get even more expensive if the company can’t find a way to get tariff exemptions.
BGR will let you know as the story unfolds.
