Why tariffs won’t bring production to the US

The iPhone is currently exempt from the massive 145% tariffs on Chinese imports, though Apple still has to deal with a 20% “fentanyl tax” on its products. Unfortunately, the reprieve is temporary, as Trump said he will soon announce another round of tariffs. They’ll cover semiconductors and some of the products that were exempt this past Friday, iPhone included.
Apple might continue to benefit from an exemption, but it might get caught in the crossfire again this time. Then it might be exempt again. Who knows? Whatever happens, it’s certain that the idea of an iPhone made in America is absolutely preposterous. It’s a grotesque lie to say otherwise, as having the iPhone manufactured anywhere other than China and Southeast Asia right now is impossible.
Yet some Trump officials keep saying that’s what the tariffs are for, to reshore production of goods to the US and, well, make manufacturing great again. Meanwhile, all sorts of experts have explained why manufacturing the iPhone in the US is impossible.
Perhaps the best quote that puts things in perspective comes from former Apple manufacturing engineer Matthew Moore, who told Bloomberg that Apple would need to employ an entire city the size of Boston to make iPhones in the US.
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“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 kind of scale Apple needs to manufacture 200 million iPhones a year and serve the entire 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 a few tens of million iPhones each year in the US, which would then be sold in North America. It would surely not need an entire city the size of Boston to do it, right? It could keep some production in China and India, which would cater 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 need to import practically all of 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. All of that would require an additional workforce, and Apple would still have to import raw materials.
Another issue is building the actual factories to handle iPhone manufacturing and parts sourcing. You need specific facilities that have to be developed from the ground up, with materials that might incur extra tariffs at the border.
Finally, you need to train people to manufacture iPhones. That’s one of China’s biggest advantages over the US and other countries that might be dying to get Apple’s business. As CNBC reported (via Ars Technica), it took Apple a decade to build an iPhone factory in India. It only started making the most advanced iPhone Pro and Pro Max models in India last year.
Then again, Apple would be best suited to make that all happen. That’s what people think. It has the resources to build factories in the US, train a massive workforce, and start assembling the iPhone in the US.
It would take years to do it, however. And the iPhones coming out of those factories would probably be prohibitively expensive to most Americans, so much so that Apple might have to shut down production in the US to make up for reduced demand.
The same CNBC report quotes iPhone price estimates from experts for made-in-America models.
Bank of America Securities analyst Wamsi Mohan gave a mild price bump, saying an iPhone 16 Pro made in America would cost $1,500 instead of $1,199.
That’s a mild price increase compared to Wedbush’s Dan Ives, who estimated Apple would need to spend $30 billion over three years to move 10% of its supply chain to America. The resulting iPhone would cost $3,500.
As The Wall Street Journal’s Joanna Stern wrote it in an article that examined what making the iPhone in America would mean, “it’s easier to teach a bald eagle to use a screwdriver.” That’s probably the best answer to anyone who says Apple can manufacture the iPhone in America. Unless, of course, a city the size of Boston is ready to become the iPhone hub of North America overnight.