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Yeah, I partially blame the unions. I was a forced member of one before they sent my job overseas.
Hint: The union didn’t send your job overseas. It was a bipartisan collaboration between the Republican Party and Bill Clinton’s neoliberal branch of the Democratic Party to pursue free-trade and globalization. Leftist democrats would have served the unions and kept barriers in place to prevent the loss of jobs.
 
No - I don’t believe it would be “next to impossible” either. It would be expensive and time-consuming (obviously on the order of many years). Just because something takes many years does not make it “next to impossible,” certainly not when we’re talking about a company with Apple’s resources.
Expensive means it is not feasible, since sales will drop like a rock. Not feasible = next to impossible. At least, impossible to upkeep Apple as the succes story it is.

And time-consuming = next to impossible to do it within the next five years - but the tariffs start tomorrow. So, “resolving” the tariff situation by shifting production to US is, most certainly, next to impossible.

Shifting production to US in several years, while making both Apple, average Americans, AND the US state way poorer in the process - that is definitely possible. But left is the question: Why? Which problem are we trying to solve, that justifies a decade of economic disruption and uncertainty? Carrying not only a risk, but according to every sensible economist on the planet a high likelihood, to just make even worse? (Such as the US debt situation).
 
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Maybe years from now when automation reaches the point where that becomes possible. That would eliminate the risk of manufacturing your products in a country constantly telegraphing their intentions to invade Taiwan which if it were to happen could possibly mean the end of your production there.
 
A well-known story:
[Jobs aren’t coming back… China has more skilled engineers.]

The stats are staggering. There are approximate 1.8 million engineers employed in the US across all disciplines. I can’t find the stat for employed engineers in China, but they graduate over 6 million engineering undergrads every year. China will graduate about 77,000 PhDs in STEM fields this year, a little less than twice the number in the US. The US will graduate maybe 26,666 domestic STEM PhDs. The foreign PhD students we used to keep will be leaving thanks to Trump administration policies, if they aren’t deported before they graduate.
 
“it's not likely that Apple and its suppliers would be able to find enough people with the necessary skillset in the United States. Cook commented on manufacturing in China in 2017, and said that Apple's iPhones are assembled there because China has expertise in very advanced manufacturing.”

Well, if I can train someone from Singapore how to do my job before the whole department moves there forever, then someone from China can train me how to do their job before their whole department comes back here forever.

They just have to want to do it.
Ain’t gonna happen. The Chinese aren’t that stupid.
 
Proof that trump is not a smart man.
And why would you put a seven times bankrupt declaring man in charge of the economy. Obviously the people who got left holding the bag when he declared bankruptcy and Trump‘s steaks and Trump universities came to naught learned an important lesson. That may have been good for his business, but not for his workers. Character counts.
 
Apple could absolutely start manufacturing iphones in the US. There are many reasons why they won't. The two biggest are all the regulations in the US and unions. Not having a skilled labor force and appropriate supply chain are way down on the list and would be quickly (not easily) solved if the government deregulated and more states became right to work.
Why you all keep talking about unions?
If unions are the problem, how come Toyota factory workers are not unionized? Why Tesla factories don't have unions? Don't just make up some baseless excuse.
 
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The bottom line is that Apple has become a lazy company. No innovation, just keep reducing the manufacturing cost to increase profit.
Even Xiaomi can make an EV and Apple failed doing so! This itself shows how low innovation is in Apple's priority list.
 
Pres. Trump isn't wrong. Apple could do it. It would take tens to maybe hundreds of billions of dollars and many years to make happen. It would also dramatically increase the prices of products. It might decrease the quality. It might even end up destroying Apple as a company. But, yes, technically Apple could do it.
 
He just (kind of) doubled down on that fixation by accusing the Japanese too of not buying American cars.

Let’s not let nationalism cloud our judgment. Most Japanese and European cars are simply better. It has less to do with the quality of workers and more with the quality of the engineering and the way the companies are run. Americans could build cars every bit as good if they weren’t focused on how to cut costs at every step in the process from the drawing board to the factory floor.
 
I’m really sick and tired of this idiot (trump) and his idiotic ideas. This is totally unnecessary and it’s going to backfire on him drastically. All of this is basically him telling the world to kiss his ass or pay the price. This man isn’t sane. He needs mental help. Trust me as someone who suffers with mental health issues I know a mentally ill person when I see it and this guy needs help. It’s not the 1800s anymore. It’s 2025. Things are built across the world. That’s how it is. That’s how it’s going to be for good or ill. You want Americans to have jobs here in industry? Invest and invent an industry that would thrive here. No American is going to work at a sweat shop for a few dollars a day building electronics.

It’s not going to happen. Why do we have such an issue with illegal aliens? Because they are willing to work for cheep doing jobs America’s don’t want to do.

If construction jobs and farming jobs were well paying jobs you could make a living off of Americans would be out doing it!

Building iPhones here in the us would make the cost insane. No one would be able to buy one because the cost to make them here would be ridiculous.

Trump doesn’t care about Americans. He cares about people kissing his fat orange ass and bribing him for breaks.

That’s what all this is about. The man is willing to tank the world economy over his ego pure and simple.
 
A US made iPhone means not only the assembly done in the US but all of the components. I suppose in a decade with lots of money that can happen but I'm not sure there's really the advantage to that some seem to think. Because it would cost a lot more the market for such a device and the components would be way smaller than it would otherwise be meaning costing more to make to sell fewer. That doesn't equal good business.
 
Why you all keep talking about unions?
If unions are the problem, how come Toyota factory workers are not unionized? Why Tesla factories don't have unions? Don't just make up some baseless excuse.

Yes, a Tesla that’s way more expensive with way worse resale value. Bad example. As for the Toyota factories, they don’t make much more than someone can earn working at In-N-Out for the most common jobs.
 


U.S. President Donald Trump "absolutely" believes that Apple could manufacture its iPhones and other devices in the United States, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said today during a media briefing.

iPhone-Assembly.jpg

Leavitt was asked whether Trump thought that iPhone manufacturing is the kind of technology that could move to the U.S. "Absolutely, he believes we have the labor, we have the workforce, we have the resources to do it," she replied, also referencing the $500 billion investment in the U.S. that Apple announced earlier this year. "And as you know, Apple has invested $500 billion here in the United States, so if Apple didn't think the United States could do it, they probably wouldn't have put up that big chunk of change."

Trump is planning to levy steep tariffs on China, Vietnam, Thailand India, the European Union, and other countries starting on April 9. He has claimed that if companies like Apple do not want to pay the tariffs, they should manufacture their devices in the United States. Despite Trump's suggestion that Apple could shift its incredibly complex supply chain to the U.S., it would be next to impossible. Disregarding the expense of such a maneuver, it's not likely that Apple and its suppliers would be able to find enough people with the necessary skillset in the United States. Cook commented on manufacturing in China in 2017, and said that Apple's iPhones are assembled there because China has expertise in very advanced manufacturing.

U.S. secretary of commerce Howard Lutnick made similar comments about iPhone manufacturing over the weekend, as 404 Media pointed out today in a piece titled "A 'US-Made iPhone' Is Pure Fantasy." Lutnick said that the "army of millions and millions of people screwing in little, little screws to make iPhones, that kind of thing is going to come to America," suggesting that neither he nor Trump understands Apple's operations.

404 Media highlights Apple's 27-page supplier list [PDF], which lists the more than 50 countries where Apple gets components from. That doesn't even count rare earth minerals that are sourced from 79 countries, and that can't be mined in the U.S. Apple could not avoid tariffs by "manufacturing" in the United States because there is no feasible way all of the iPhone's components could be made in one country. Even if we limit "manufacturing" to device assembly, and the U.S. had the skilled employees required (which it does not), cost of living and wages in the U.S. vs. wages in other countries would make the price of a U.S. iPhone astronomically higher.

Apple has not yet commented on the tariffs, but the company has been stockpiling iPhones and is also planning to rely on imports from India, where tariffs are lower, to offset some of costs associated with importing devices from China.

It is true that Apple announced a $500 billion investment in the United States, but Apple will be manufacturing servers for its Private Cloud Compute system, not iPhones. Servers are a low demand product that aren't customer facing.

When Apple manufactured the Mac Pro in Texas during Trump's first term, it was largely a failure. Apple struggled to find local suppliers, importing components to Texas caused delays and unexpected expenses, and Apple had a hard time finding workers with the required skill.

As of yesterday, Trump was planning to levy a 54 percent tariff on China, but today, he increased that by another 50 percent. Starting tomorrow, goods imported from China will be subject to a tariff of 104 percent.

Note: Due to the political or social nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Political News forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

Article Link: Trump Believes Apple Could Manufacture iPhones in the U.S.
It's already been tried. It didn't work out. It was cheaper and more efficient to manufacture the phone in Asia.
"In the early years, Apple did manufacture its products, including Macintosh computers, in the U.S., with a factory in Silicon Valley."--from AI
 
Bernie and AOC who have zero appeal to independents and will push voters away again. The woke and socialist left is just as deranged and out of touch

[OT]

Bernie, AOC, and co are not even left, they're a solid center in many European countries and what they call for has exactly nothing to do with the buzzword "socialism" you guys have been conditioned to fear with your life.

And what has become "woke" in a derogatory usage by many right of center is really just basic human rights. Again already made into actual laws of many other western countries. But what does the rest of the World know...

From my observation, especially recent news of the two of them filling stadiums with tens of thousands of people, it's not exactly their ideas that's been pushing independents away, it's the other way around, the DNC has been pushing independents away, which is also obvious in recent election results (of people deciding not to vote at all)

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I abhor tariffs. To do tariffs during a long-lasting inflationary cycle is monumentally stupid. To see Republicans (for the most part) embracing this idiotic policy is disheartening. To see Democrats suddenly loving free-market economics is nice though.

You haven’t been paying attention. Bill Clinton changed the economic policies of the Democratic Party by embracing neoliberalism, financial deregulation, NAFTA, and trade normalization with China. He also implemented Republican programs like Welfare Reform and even had budget surpluses.
 
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