A made-in-the-USA iPhone might sound like a great idea, but you may need deep pockets to afford one.
At a press briefing on Tuesday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt stated, "[The President] believes we have the labor, we have the workforce, we have the resources to do it. If Apple didn’t think the U.S. could do it, they probably wouldn’t have put up that big chunk of change."
Leavitt was referring to $500 billion worth of promised investments from Apple in the U.S. for the next four years, which are expected to add 20,000 U.S. jobs.
On the surface, that might sound like a win, but even if Apple managed to make an iPhone at home, experts say the iPhone might get slapped with a bigger price tag — a lot bigger.
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A $3,000 iPhone? According to experts, it could happen
Sweeping tariffs recently implemented by the Trump administration (and, for most countries, paused days later) are an attempt to bring manufacturing back to the United States.
Unfortunately, as experts are pointing out, it's not as simple as flipping a switch and moving shop, especially for a huge brand like Apple.
Dan Ives, Global Head of Technology Research at Wedbush Securities explained the situation in a recent interview on CNN: "The reality is, it's the most complicated supply chain in the world, and the way that they have 1.5 billion iPhones and they're able to make them at $1,000 is because of the supply chain that's really been built over the the last decade."
Ives added the bad news, stating, "You build that in the U.S. in a fab in West Virginia or New Jersey? They'll be $3,500 iPhones."
To put that into perspective, that's almost as pricey as a pair of luxury AirPods coated in two layers of pure gold.
While tariffs have been in a constant state of change, those targeting China have yet to be rolled back, which is important to note since China is a core pillar of Apple's supply chain (and the supply chains of virtually every other tech brand).
So, there's a chance that price increases are likely going to happen one way or another.
Why can't Apple make iPhones in the U.S.?
If you're wondering why Apple can't simply start making its products in manufacturing facilities in the U.S., the answer is that those products rely on massive global supply chains that can't realistically be confined to just the United States. At least, not overnight.
It takes years just to build manufacturing infrastructure, let alone get it up and running.
As Ives explained, "It would take Apple $30 billion and 3 years to move just 10% of the [iPhone] supply chain to the U.S."
Tim Cook shared similar thoughts in an interview at the 2017 Fortune Global Forum, clarifying that Apple's reasons for keeping huge swaths of its supply chain and manufacturing in China are because that's where the skilled workers they need are.
Cook stated, "The products we do require really advanced tooling, and the precision that you have to have, the tooling and working with the materials that we do are state of the art. And the tooling skill is very deep [in China]. In the U.S., you could have a meeting of tooling engineers and I’m not sure we could fill the room. In China, you could fill multiple football fields."
So, infrastructure and skilled labor are really the linchpins in any plans for Apple to move its manufacturing to the United States.
This reality means that even if Apple did invest billions of dollars to build out its manufacturing facilities in the U.S., it would still be years before those facilities began making even a small fraction of Apple's products. So, in the meantime, prices on all Apple devices will likely have to go up as a result of tariffs.
That means, theoretically, a $3,000 price tag for the iPhone 17 is not out of the question at this point, though the way tariffs— and the rhetoric around them — are shifting, it's hard to say for sure.
