Just one of the 230 million iPhones that Apple makes every year. Kerry Wan/ZDNETCould your next iPhone have “Made in America” laser-engraved on the back? Don’t hold your breath.President Donald Trump’s administration has again raised the idea that iPhone production could shift from China and India to the US.”Remember the army of millions and millions of human beings screwing in little screws to make iPhones?” US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick said last April. “That kind of thing is going to come to America.”Also: Are tariffs about to make your next iPhone way more expensive? It’s complicatedBut is it really?When you have a device that consists of thousands of parts made by suppliers from all around the globe, and the final product is assembled by hand in countries where wages are low, any hope of that idea quickly evaporates.Complex supply and assembly chainThe Financial Times has carried out an analysis of just how complex the iPhone’s supply and assembly chain is. A modern iPhone is made up of around 2,700 component parts sourced from 187 suppliers in 28 countries.The bulk of those components comes from China and Japan, and there is a reason for that: the closer the components are to where the iPhone is assembled, the quicker and easier it is to source them, and the cheaper everything becomes.But it is not just about components. Take the aluminum frame used as the chassis for every iPhone. Each one of these is cut from a block of aluminum by high-precision computer numerical control (CNC) machines — machines of a type and quantity, along with the expertise to run them, that currently only exist in China.Also: Worried about a $2,300 iPhone? How US tariffs are causing tech buyers to scrambleThen there are the rare earth minerals, such as yttrium, lanthanum, neodymium, dysprosium, and terbium. These are vital for an array of components, from magnets and displays to batteries. Without these rare earth minerals, everything stops. As the name suggests, these minerals are rare, with the bulk of them coming from China. This is yet another obstacle to the idea of a “Made in America” iPhone, with shipping, tariffs, and now China imposing export restrictions on many of these essential rare earth minerals, further complicating an already complicated and chaotic time for tech companies.But let’s say Apple could wave a magic wand and solve all the component and rare earth minerals issues, and build enough CNC machines to handle the aluminum machining required for iPhone production. What about assembly?iPhones are very labor-intensive to assemble, with a lot of screwing in little screws (little precision screws that are currently made in China and India), and that is because paying people to do the work in China and India is much cheaper than building automated plants. The assembly plants are massive, housing some 300,000 people who live and work on-site. The scale of the factories alone is enormous, and that is before you try to get people to work in such mega factories and accept a very different way of working.Also: Tariff exemptions for electronics offer a break for tech – but not for longFor example, assemblers like Foxconn, the company that handles the bulk of iPhone assembly, routinely bring on board tens of thousands of additional workers in the run-up to a new iPhone launch, and then let them go once the first push of orders has gone out. These are practices that just do not happen in the US on anything close to this scale.And even if Apple were to invest in such an assembly plant in the US, we then need to factor into the equation that the base pay in China starts at around $214 per month, compared to some $3,500 for a factory worker in the US.This is the scale of assembly that it takes to keep the iPhone — along with pretty much every other bit of tech you buy — at its current price point. Any shifts, tweaks, or changes to this system will instantly drive prices up. More
