What Steve Jobs told Barack Obama in 2012 about manufacturing iPhones in the United States
Days after imposing sweeping tariff on all trading partners of the United States, the Donald Trump administration decided to exempt electronics like smartphones and laptops from reciprocal tariffs. It appeared that the move is aimed at keeping the prices down for popular consumer electronics that aren’t usually made in the US.
“All those products are going to come under semiconductors, and they’re going to have a special focus type of tariff to make sure that those products get reshored. We need to have semiconductors, we need to have chips, and we need to have flat panels – we need to have these things made in America. We can’t be reliant on Southeast Asia for all of the things that operate for us,” Lutnick told ABC News.
Trump had earlier asserted that reciprocal tariffs are an effective way of rebuilding American manufacturing sector by shielding it from unfair foreign competition. But is it possible?
Then President Obama asked Jobs, “What would it take to make iPhones in the United States? Why can’t that work come home.” The Apple founder said, “Those jobs aren’t coming back,” according to NYT quoting a guest at the dinner.
According to the report, Apple’s decision to manufacture and assemble its iPhones overseas was due to three reasons – speed, scale and skill. The Apple Executives emphasised the superior scale, flexibility and specialised skills found in overseas factories have led to the company setting up supply chains in Asian nations.
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