billy99k 9 days ago

It won't happen in the short-term, because it takes time for manufacturers to move their entire base of operation to another country and disrupt the supply chain.

In the longer term (3+ years), it's possible. Companies are too greedy though. Once the incentives are gone, they will be back to slave labor in China and Vietnam and people in the US will still wonder where all the jobs went.

  • timeon 9 days ago

    AFAIK US has enough prisoners in slave labor to produce the iPhone.

sightbroke 9 days ago

Kind of sad that iPhone and Switch 2 price increase anxiety appears to be driving the discussion around the tariffs.

Regardless, higher labor costs perhaps will drive more automative manufacturing. Maybe we'll see a partially adative manufactured iPhone.

palmotea 9 days ago

Once upon a time, a Chinese-made advanced technology (like a smartphone) would not just have been a pure fantasy, but a laughable joke.

Remember that scene is Back to the Future where the 50s Doc Brown scoffs at the Japanese components of the time machine?

There are a lot of vested interests that will fight for the offshore status quo, because their profits depend on it. Nothing else matters to them.

josefritzishere 9 days ago

It is not possible to tariff IT hardware enough to pull manufacturing back to the USA. The cost differential is exponential. Cellphones would cost 30k each. The product would be dead.

  • polotics 9 days ago

    can you run us through the math on this 30k? how much labour is in the price of a smartphone? doesn't appear to me to be heavy or large. Cobalt won't mine itself, granted, but do I assume you didn't include digging a hole from Virginia to Congo in your evaluation?

benatkin 9 days ago

And one designed in China is Puerh Fantasy