Trump's one iPhone-related bucket list entry that even he cannot make happen
President Donald Trump, for the most part, has been able to implement his agenda and has been able to get mostly everything he wants. But there is something he desires and by putting his tariff plan into action, he is hoping that it forces this item on his bucket list to come to fruition. Trump would like to see Apple build the iPhone in the U.S.
During a briefing held Tuesday with the media, the president's press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, was asked a question from a reporter about a comment made by Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick that was related to the manufacturing of Apple's iconic smartphone. The reporter asked whether iPhone manufacturing, specifically, was a tech job that President Trump thought could be moved to the U.S.
Leavitt's response was to say, "Absolutely, he believes we have the labor, we have the workforce, we have the resources to do it. 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." Such an undertaking would be difficult to pull off. Apple might have trouble putting together a supply chain to sell it components at the right price and would certainly not be able to match the low-paid labor pool that Apple needs to assemble the device in the States.
Needham analyst Laura Martin says that there is no way the iPhone can be built in the U.S. Martin said, "I don’t think that's a thing," She said that Apple's costs would soar. Her opinion was shared on Wall Street by long-time Apple bull, Dan Ives of securities firm Wedbush. The analyst said that if Apple built the iPhone in the U.S. the price of the device would be $3,500. Ives also notes that it would take years for Apple to move iPhone production to the U.S.
Besides analysts, supply chain experts also say that making the iPhone completely in the U.S. is impossible. It appears that the president believes otherwise and if he can make it so, it would be quite a feather in his cap. However, this is one wish that Trump cannot simply make true through the use of force, political pressure, or by using his relationship with Tim Cook.
Even with his army of supporters on Wall Street, in Congress, and on Main Street, the president cannot make it feasible for Apple to build the iPhone in a U.S. factory. The numbers just don't work. It would be in Trump's favor to bring higher paying factory jobs to the U.S. and Apple needs to use low-cost labor or else it would have to price the product out of the reach of most consumers worldwide. This might just have to be one bucket list entry that the president doesn't get to draw a line through.
In theory, Trump could raise tariffs so high in every country that the only place that the phone could be built would be the U.S. But by then, the economy would be in a 1929 depression with the economy so bad that no one would consider spending what little disposable income they had left on an iPhone.
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