Why Donald Trump's China tariffs won't bring iPhone production back to America

US President Donald Trump has long championed the idea of Apple producing its iconic iPhone in the United States, a move he sees as a cornerstone of his economic agenda to revive American manufacturing.

Yet, despite steep tariffs on Chinese goods and Apple’s pledge to invest $500 billion domestically, experts say the prospect of a US-made iPhone remains a distant and costly dream.

Trump’s administration has imposed tariffs as high as 145% on Chinese-made products as the trade war between the world’s two largest economies continues to escalate.

The iPhone has been assembled primarily in China since its debut in 2007, benefiting from a vast, efficient supply chain. Apple has diversified some production to India, where it now manufactures about 35 million units annually, but replicating China’s scale in the US poses formidable challenges.

Industry analysts argue that moving iPhone production to the US would require rebuilding a complex ecosystem of suppliers, factories, and skilled labour, a process that could take years and billions of dollars.

Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives estimated that an iPhone, currently priced around $1,000 when made in China or India, could cost upwards of $3,000 if produced domestically, potentially pricing out consumers and denting Apple’s market dominance, reported Associated Press.

Referring to a major iPhone factory in Zhengzhou, which has even been dubbed iPhone City, Matthew Moore, a former Apple manufacturing engineer, said, "What city in America is going to put everything down and build only iPhones?”

The Zhengzhou complex, employing hundreds of thousands, includes dormitories, schools, and medical facilities.

"Boston is over 500,000 people. The whole city would need to stop everything and start assembling iPhones,” Bloomberg News quoted Moore as saying.

China’s edge lies not only in infrastructure but also in its workforce. Millions of Chinese workers are trained in the precision tasks required for iPhone assembly, a skill set Moore says is scarce in the US due to declining enrollment in STEM fields. “The engineering support to run a factory is not in America,” he added.

Apple has made strides to reduce its reliance on China, with India emerging as a key hub. A Reuters report suggests that the company chartered cargo jets to ship 600 tons of iPhones, roughly 1.5 million units, from India to the US, to dodge Trump’s tariffs. However, even India’s decade-long effort to scale up iPhone production pales in comparison to China’s capacity. Other countries like Vietnam and Thailand handle Apple’s Macs and AirPods, but iPhones remain a tougher challenge.

The company’s $500 billion US investment plan, announced in February, focuses on areas like artificial intelligence and a Houston data center, not iPhone factories.

Apple CEO Tim Cook has remained tight-lipped on the tariff issue but may face questions during a May 1 earnings call.