Trump threatens the tariffs in Apple unless the production of iPhone brings us. Will it ever happen?

President Donald Trump threatened Friday with 25% tariffs in Apple unless the company changes iPhonemanuffacturing to the United States, saying that the company’s decision to transfer part of its supply chain to India disapproves.
“A long time ago informed [CEO] Apple Tim Cook that I hope that its iPhone will be sold in the United States of America will be manufactured and built in the United States, not in India, or elsewhere, “Trump said in a publication on social networks.
But a relocation in the United States of Apple’s supply chain is very unlikely, industry analysts said to ABC News before Trump’s latest comments, pointing out the time and expenses necessary to review the production, as well as the continuous cost of the highest wages commanded by the workers in the US.
In theory, the United States could organize the final assembly of Apple products such as the iPhone, but even that would take several years and give rise to higher prices for buyers, which can then resort to cheaper alternatives, some analysts said.
“Everything is possible, as long as it has a long enough term and does not care about profitability,” ABC News told Avi Grengart, the main analyst of the Techsponential Research Firm.
“It is an incredibly global supply chain. If you want to move it to the United States, you are talking about many years, possibly decades,” Grengart added.
Last month, Trump exempted phones, computers and fried potatoes of the so -called “reciprocal tariffs” imposed on the goods made by China, which at that time amounted to a 125%tax. The movement also excluded these products from a 10% rate in general imposed on almost all imports.
The policy change provided large cost savings for Apple, which produces about 90% of its smartphones in China.
“I talk to Tim Cook. I helped Tim Cook, recently, and all that business,” Trump told reporters in the Oval office days after the exemption came into force.
Last week, Trump temporarily cut reciprocal tariffs on China from 125% to 10% as the United States and China maintain commercial negotiations. China still faces 20% tariffs on their role in the fentanyl trade, which carries the total levies to 30% Chinese products.
In a gain call earlier this month, Cook said the company had changed the production of iPhones sold in the United States to India as a means to avoid high rates.
“Most of the iPhones sold in the United States will have India as their country of origin,” Cook said.

President Donald J. Trump is on stage while turning the Udeid air base on May 15, 2025, in Doha, Qatar.
Win McNamee/Getty Images
However, the secretary of Commerce, Howard Lutnick, said this month in an interview with Fox News that Trump’s vision to mark the beginning of a “golden age” for the United States involved attracting manufacturers to open factories and build in the United States. And, he explained, tariffs play in that strategy.
He said that the idea is to “restart manufacturing, build here, have those who build here do not pay tariffs.”
“We are going to have great jobs in manufacturing. You have heard the president talk about billions and billions of factories that are built in the United States,” he said in the interview on May 11. “Those are construction work, starting now, and then those products will not have tariffs on them.”
Cook pointed out that the company already manufactures some components in the United States.
“During the 2025 calendar year, we hope to obtain more than 19 billion chips from a dozen states, including tens of millions of advanced chips that are held in Arizona this year. We also obtain glass used on iPhone from an American company,” Cook said. “In total, we have more than 9,000 suppliers in the US. In the 50 states.”
Even so, the United States -based manufacturing constitutes a small part of the company’s supply chain, and any important expansion would take years and take significant costs, analysts said.
Dan IVES, a Variable Income Research Director of the Wedbush investment firm, who tracks the technological industry, said last month that he would take three years and cost $ 30 billion for Apple to change 10% of its supply chain to the US.
“The price points would rise so dramatically that it is difficult to understand,” Iives added, describing the notion of an iPhone made in the United States as a “non -clarifying.”
The price of an iPhone 16 pro jumped only 25%, due to the labor expenses of the United States. Such price increase, which excludes, for example, the additional cost of factory construction, would bring a smartphone from $ 999 to approximately $ 1,250.
A small proportion of consumers would buy an iPhone made in the United States even after a meaning of price increase, but the “vast majority” would opt for cheaper alternatives, said Ben Bajain, an analyst at the Creative Strategies research firm, to ABC News.
Ascending pressure on prices as a result of high US labor costs would cause national manufacturing to be almost impossible, presenting Apple a dilemma, Bajain said.
“Production will never happen in the USA., Unless we have an absolute and totally automated assembly, which completely defeats the purpose because humans will not do the jobs,” Bajain added.