Aamir Siddiqui / Android Authority
TL;DR
- President Donald Trump has threatened at least 25% tariff on Apple if it doesn’t make iPhones in the US.
- Though aimed at Apple, these tariffs could also impact Android phones due to similar production practices.
- If implemented, this move would likely cause widespread price hikes across both iPhones and Android phones.
The US government has been playing with tariff rates for the past few months, raising and lowering them frequently. It’s been challenging to track their effects on retro-gaming consoles, but smartphones have been in a relatively more predictable spot, until now. President Donald Trump has now demanded that Apple make its iPhones in the US, or it will face a 25% tariff. While the move is targeting Apple specifically, it won’t take much to extend it to the rest of the smartphone industry in the States.
President Trump has directly threatened Apple with tariffs through a post on his social networking site, Truth Social.
President Trump is referencing Apple’s decision to make the iPhone in India instead of China to avoid the previously-imposed 20% tariff on all goods from China (separate from the reciprocal tariffs that climbed up to an additional 125% before being brought down again). Until now, Apple intended to supply the US mainly with made-in-India iPhones, while serving the rest of the world with iPhones made in China. The company didn’t intend to make any iPhones in the US, primarily because of the absence of the supply chain, expertise, and labor needed to produce a smartphone domestically. Even if these factors of production were to magically appear overnight, it would still take years to build a facility capable of serving US demand.
We’ve reached out to Apple for a statement, and we’ll update this article when we hear back from the company on these proposed tariffs.
How does this threat affect Android?
While President Trump explicitly calls out Apple, nothing stops these same orders from affecting Android smartphones, too. Android brands have followed the same strategy as Apple, diversifying their production lines out of China to bypass the effect of tariffs. However, none have shifted production back to the US simply because it is equally challenging for them.
If and when it passes, the executive order for these tariffs could encompass the entirety of smartphones sold in the US, which would obviously and very directly affect the entire smartphone market across iOS and Android. So there’s no reason for Android fans to rejoice in this threat unless you want your next smartphone to get more expensive than it already is.
