Former Apple engineer on why iPhones cannot be made in the US

Trump’s rationale for his threatened tariffs is to force companies to manufacture in the US. He’s cited the example of Apple making iPhones in the US, and even recently claimed that the company plans to do so. Apple has explained many times why it simply wouldn’t be practical to do this, with CEO Tim Cook doing so a full decade ago. Analysts, supply-chain experts, and a former Apple engineer have all added their weight to the view that it simply isn’t possible, and wouldn’t help even if it were … Tim Cook said way back in 2015 that the time when the US was capable of manufacturing at this kind of scale is long gone. China put an enormous focus on manufacturing. The U.S., over time, began to stop having as many vocational kind of skills. I mean, you can take every tool and die maker in the United States and probably put them in a room that we’re currently sitting in. In China, you would have to have multiple football fields. The best that could happen is “final screw engineering,” w ... Read full article.