New York / Washington: President Donald Trump wants Apple to build iphones in the United States. But experts say it could take years and make phones much more expensive – up to $ 3,500 each.
The current price is almost three times.
The big question is now: will American consumers be ready to pay this high price just to make a phone at home?
Trump’s offer to provide the manufacture of iPhone to the United States faces many legal and economic challenges, experts said on Friday – the least of which is the insertion of “small screws” that should be automated.
Trump threatened on Friday to impose a price of 25% on Apple for any iPhones sold, but not carried out in the United States, as part of the objective of his administration to close jobs. He told journalists later on Friday that the 25% rate would also apply to Samsung and other smartphones manufacturers. It expects the prices to come into force at the end of June.
“Otherwise, it would not be fair” if he did not apply to all imported smartphones, said Trump. “I had an understanding with (Apple CEO) Tim (Cook) that he would not do that. He said he was going to India to build plants. I said it was ok to go to India, but you are not going to sell here without prices.”
Commerce secretary Howard Lunick said CBS Last month, the work of “millions and millions of human beings screwing in small, small screws to make iPhones” would come to the United States and would be automated, creating jobs for qualified commercial workers such as mechanisms and electricians.
But he said later CNBC This cook informed him of doing so requires technology that is not yet available.
“He said, I need to have robotic arms, on the right, to do it on a scale and a precision that I could bring it here. And the day I see it available here,” said Lunick.
The quickest way for Trump administration to pressure Apple through prices would be to use the same legal mechanism behind the punishing prices on a large strip of imports, said lawyers and teachers.
The law, known as the International Emergency Economic Powers, allows the president to take economic measures after having declared an emergency that constitutes an unusual and extraordinary threat to the United States.
“There is no Claire legal authority which authorizes the prices specific to the company, but the Trump administration can try to Lahorner under its emergency authorities,” Sally Stewart Liang, Akin Gump partner in Washington, told Washington.
Other ways to take prices specific to the company are based on long surveys, said Liang.
But the prices on only Apple “would provide a competitive advantage for other important phones, which undermines Trump’s objectives to make manufacturing in the United States,” said Liang.
Experts said Trump considered the IEEPA as a flexible and powerful economic tool because it is not clear that the courts have the power to review the president’s response to a declared emergency.
“In the opinion of the administration, as long as he promulgates the ritual to declare an emergency and to pronounce it unusual or extraordinary, there is nothing that a court can do,” said Tim Meyer, professor of international law at Duke University.
In a case filed by 12 States contesting the prices of Trump’s “Liberation Day” before the International Trade Court based in Manhattan, the Court examines this question and if the ieepa authorizes the prices.
If the Trump administration wins this case, “the president will have no trouble offering an emergency to justify prices for iPhone apple imports,” said Meyer.
Trump could even simply include iPhones under the urgency of the trade deficit which has already formed the basis of the prices declared earlier, said Meyer.
But the movement of production in the United States could take up to a decade and could result in a cost of $ 3,500 each, Dan Ives, analyst at Wedbush, in a research note. Apple’s high -end iPhone currently costs around $ 1,200.
“We believe that the concept of apple producing iphones in the United States is a fairy tale that is not possible,” said Ives.
Even without going so far, a price on iPhones would increase consumer costs by complicating the supply chain and Apple financing, said Brett House, an economy teacher in Columbia.
“None of this is positive for American consumers,” he said.
