It's going to take time to reverse 40+ years of outsourcing manufacturing. It can't be done with a snap of a finger
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Trump Believes Apple Could Manufacture iPhones in the U.S.
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Businesses respond to the economic conditions placed on them by various stakeholders which include governments, unions, suppliers, customers, etc. So when unions demand wages that are so much higher than what they would have to pay overseas, and if other factors line up favorably, most if not all businesses will move their production offshore. Combine union demands with high government regulation you have the perfect incentives for companies to do what they've been doing for the last 40 years or so.
Unfortunately I do not believe Trump's tariffs will succeed in bringing production back to America because they do not address the fundamental problems of over regulation and union power.
Winter was coming either way. You can't rack up nearly $37T in debt with trillions more in unfunded liabilities, and monthly trade deficits in the hundreds of billions of dollars and not face a day of reckoning.
The US has been on an unsustainable economic path for since the 60's. It all started with Johnson's guns & butter.
If they try to pay the US workers nothing with no benefits, then what happens is the tax payers have to backfill Apple's payroll. Because the workers will qualify for things like food stamps, housing subsidies and their kids will get free lunch at school and will quality for means-based grants at universities and also reduced rate water, phone and electric utilities. Either Apple pays their people or you and I pay them.
The Chinese factories cover their people 100% and even provide company housing - complete with suicide-prevention nets around tall buildings. No one in Chine really wants these jobs. They do it because they lack education and experience. Even in China making iPhones is a very low-end job.
But none of this is going to happen because 100,000 Americans will not quite their jobs and work at iPhone factories. We have less than 5% unemployment, If Apple builds phones in the US, you can bet there will be VERY FEW jobs, unless you are a robot. Check up the Mac Pro factory in Texas. I think about 100 humans work there.
I operate a paid subscription service worldwide and for the United States I'm intending to increase my prices to cover the tariffs. Apart from that I won't be changing where or how I conduct business. So in the case of my US customers they will be the ones footing the bill for these tariffs.
I don't think this experiment will be successful and we may only have these tariffs for this administration so why would I create an entity within the USA, setup warehouses and fulfillment centers for what may only last 4 years (and potentially much less than that based on how he changes his mind as the wind blows)?
Also just to put it into perspective. Just setting up warehousing and fulfillment, hiring and training. That would be about 18 months. But the products would still be manufactured overseas and thus subject to the tariffs. Moving that manufacturing to the USA would probably take over 5 years for us.. just to serve about 25% of our customers?.. it's not worth it. The problem is just finding manufacturers who could do a job as good as what we get out of China and Taiwan.
We do not even make iPhones and we're talking about 90 or so vendors for a single product. I can tell you that just off the top of my head about 30 of those have no equivalent in the USA. So what are we to do? start 30 businesses that make just the singular components they're exclusively making outside of the USA? - it's Just not going to happen.
The world is a very different place to the 1861-1933 period he keeps calling the golden era of America.
I don't think this experiment will be successful and we may only have these tariffs for this administration so why would I create an entity within the USA, setup warehouses and fulfillment centers for what may only last 4 years (and potentially much less than that based on how he changes his mind as the wind blows)?
Also just to put it into perspective. Just setting up warehousing and fulfillment, hiring and training. That would be about 18 months. But the products would still be manufactured overseas and thus subject to the tariffs. Moving that manufacturing to the USA would probably take over 5 years for us.. just to serve about 25% of our customers?.. it's not worth it. The problem is just finding manufacturers who could do a job as good as what we get out of China and Taiwan.
We do not even make iPhones and we're talking about 90 or so vendors for a single product. I can tell you that just off the top of my head about 30 of those have no equivalent in the USA. So what are we to do? start 30 businesses that make just the singular components they're exclusively making outside of the USA? - it's Just not going to happen.
The world is a very different place to the 1861-1933 period he keeps calling the golden era of America.
If it's true that we can replace buying many things from other countries with local manufacturing and still make a profit, then why force Apple and others to do this? Why not instead does some/any American with a little capital start up a NEW business with local manufacturing and add manufacturing that way. The claim is such a company would be competitive so there certainly should be good motivation for that to happen. But it doesn't (with occasional exceptions) so logic says there is a good capitalism based reason for that. Maybe it's the loss of the economy of scale the current way leverages. Maybe it's some other reasons.
The American empire has been in decline for many, many years. It's mainly the dollar's status as the world's reserve currency that has kept us on top. When the dollar does finally lose its reserve currency status the world will be a very different place.
Maybe that's because Toyota workers would rather keep their jobs than price themselves out of the market and end up having to take lower paying service sector jobs?
We couldn’t build a single chip factory without importing half of the workers from Taiwan. How are we going to build an entire supply chain?
Nice try, but no. It’s not about “pricing themselves out of the market.” It’s about the decoupling of American wages from the nation’s prosperity back in the 80s thanks to Reagan and “trickle down economics.” If you want to accept garbage wages because you are okay with having no other options, that’s on you. Don’t expect the rest of us to live that way.
The unions played a significant role in sending our manufacturing jobs overseas. The reason why unions target retail and government jobs these days is they're the only ones left.
Love all the people in here who support sweatshop labor and poor working conditions so they can enjoy their ‘cheap’ iPhone. 👍 👏
The decoupling of American wages from the nation's prosperity is a consequence of using a fake fiat currency. The wealth and income gap was never as big when we used sound Constitutional money.
I'm sure Toyota workers are smart enough to act in their own best interest so if unionizing were to their advantage they would vote that way. To suggest otherwise is insulting to them.
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Those are what Apple Pay’s Foxconn per assembled iPhone. Facts. Public knowledge. You can look it up.
Apple pays Foxconn for assembly. Apple provides the parts. Foxconn doesn't have to buy the parts used in the phone
I do not support Trump or the tariffs. However, dismissing local manufacturing as impossible is a self-fulfillng prophecy. The infrastructure and expertise is not available, so there is no local investment, and so the infrastructure and expertise never becomes available.
Of course it is a difficult problem. But businesses can solve difficult problems. They just need financial incentives to actually do so. Tariffs, or subsidies, can do that.
Of course it is a difficult problem. But businesses can solve difficult problems. They just need financial incentives to actually do so. Tariffs, or subsidies, can do that.
Everything trump is doing is for the good of usa (long term). Id rather trust a billionaire businessman 3 time elected president than a bunch of nobodies on macrumors
the end result here is sad. he campaigned to bring prices down. he knows everything we buy comes from china.
now as I write this he hit China with 104 percent tariff. this is to wipe out the poor and middle class
thats what this is.
I am not paying $5000 for a Mac Studio.
$3000 for an iPhone.
$8000 for a Vision Pro.
Apple is in a bad spot.
No comments from Tim Cook the leader of Apple
good thing I ordered a new Mac Studio M4 Max the last Mac I can afford to buy.
now as I write this he hit China with 104 percent tariff. this is to wipe out the poor and middle class
thats what this is.
I am not paying $5000 for a Mac Studio.
$3000 for an iPhone.
$8000 for a Vision Pro.
Apple is in a bad spot.
No comments from Tim Cook the leader of Apple
good thing I ordered a new Mac Studio M4 Max the last Mac I can afford to buy.
Fortunately you are in the vast minority. smile 😊
Trump believes a lot of things that aren't true, they could probably assemble the phones in the USA but I significant percentage of the components would still need to be imported. Probably the SOC as well, and I doubt they could be manufactured in the quantities that they manage in China.
I recall Obama asked Steve Jobs why they couldn't manufacture their products in the USA and he told him that the USA just didn't have enough engineers to manage it. The only way to make manufacturing viable in the USA is if they start investing huge sums of money into creating an infastructure that can handle its needs and educating or importing the people qualified enough to work in it. You'll never get that in the USA, they can barely get together to fund an infastructure bill.
I recall Obama asked Steve Jobs why they couldn't manufacture their products in the USA and he told him that the USA just didn't have enough engineers to manage it. The only way to make manufacturing viable in the USA is if they start investing huge sums of money into creating an infastructure that can handle its needs and educating or importing the people qualified enough to work in it. You'll never get that in the USA, they can barely get together to fund an infastructure bill.
Please feel free to comment on subjects you know nothing about. It just might land you a lucrative career with the current administration.
Education is the problem. I won’t name who. But you know who, have degraded it for decades. That’s how we got to where we are today. This is how the Taliban stay in power. They removed education and propagandize children for decades. It just looks different here because we have money and modern infrastructure.