President Donald Trump on Friday threatened a 25% tariff to Apple unless the company diverted the IPHONEMANUFAKTUR to the United States, saying he did not approve of the company’s decision to move part of his supply chain to India.
“I have been in information for a long time [CEO] Tim Cook from Apple that I expect from their iPhone which will be sold in the United States will be produced and built in the United States, not India, or other places, “Trump said at a social media post.
But the relocation of the US Apple supply chain that is bound by US is very unlikely, the industrial analyst told ABC News before Trump’s latest statement, referring to the time and costs required to overhaul the production-sustainable costs of the higher wages ordered by workers in the US in the US.
In theory, the US can host the final assembly of Apple products such as the iPhone, but even it will take several years and produce a higher price for buyers, which can then switch to a cheaper alternative, said several analysts.
“Anything possible, as long as you have a long period of time and do not care about profitability,” Avi Greengart, the main analyst at the TechSonential Research Company, told ABC News.
“This is a very global supply chain. If you want to move it to the US, you talk about years, maybe a few decades,” added Greengart.
Trump last month freed the cellphone, computer and chip from the so-called “reciprocal rates” imposed on goods made in China, which at that time amounted to 125% levies. This step also excluded these products from the 10% cross-papan fares imposed on almost all imports.
Changes in policy provide a large cost savings for Apple, which produces around 90% of smartphones in China.
“I spoke with Tim Cook. I helped the Cook Tim, recently, and the whole business,” Trump told reporters at the Oval Office a few days after the release applies.
Last week, Trump temporarily cut reciprocity tariffs in China from 125% to 10% because the US and China held trade negotiations. China still faces a 20% tariff for its role in the Fentanyl trade, so that the total levies on Chinese goods become 30%.
In the revenue call earlier this month, Cook said the company had shifted iPhone production sold in the US to India as a means to avoid high tariffs.
“The majority of iPhones sold in the US will make India their home country,” Cook said.
President Donald J. Trump stood on stage while he toured the Al Udeid Air Base, May 15, 2025, in Doha, Qatar.
Win the McNamee/Getty image
However, Trade Secretary Howard Lutnick said this month in an interview with Fox News that Trump’s vision to deliver the “golden age” for America involving attractive producers to open factories and build in the United States. And, he explained, the play rates in the strategy.
He said that the idea was “to justify manufacturing, to build here, to make people who build here do not pay any rates.”
“We will have a big job in the field of manufacturing. You have heard the president talking about trillions and trillions of factories that are being built in America,” he said in an interview on May 11. “That is a construction work, from now on, and then the products will not have tariffs on them.”
Cook noted that the company has produced several components in the United States.
“During the 2025 calendar, we hope to look for more than 19 billion chips from a dozen states, including tens of millions of sophisticated chips made in Arizona this year. We are also a glass source used on the iPhone from American companies,” Cook said. “All said, we have more than 9,000 suppliers in the US in all 50 states.”
However, manufacturing based in the US is a small part of the company’s supply chain-supply of every large expansion will take years and bring significant costs, the analysts said.
And Ives, a Director of Equity Research in the Wedbush investment company that tracks the technology industry, said last month that it would take three years and cost $ 30 billion for Apple to change 10% of its supply chains to the US, the price of the US -made iPhone could increase as high as $ 3,500, said Ives.
“Price points will rise dramatically so it is difficult to understand,” added Ives, describing the idea of an iPhone made by the US as “Nonstarter.”
The price of the iPhone 16 Pro will jump 25%, because it adds US labor costs, Bank of America Securities Analyst Wamsi Mohan told the client last month in a note that was shared with ABC News. Such price increases, which are not included for example additional costs from factory construction, will carry $ 999 smartphones to around $ 1,250.
A small number of consumers will buy an iPhone made in the US even after a significant price increase, but “most” will choose a cheaper alternative, Ben Bajarin, analyst at the Creative Research Firm Strategy, told ABC News.
Price pressure as a result of high US labor costs will make domestic manufacturing almost impossible, giving Apple with a dilemma, said Bajarin.
“Production will never occur in the US – unless we have absolute assembly, completely automatic, which fully defeats the goal because humans will not do work,” Bajarin added.