San Francisco. The Trump administration has claimed that its escalating tariffs on China would push Apple Inc. to start manufacturing iPhones in the United States for the first time.

But that scenario remains unlikely—even with US tariffs now reaching 145 percent on products made in China, where Apple has built most of its iPhones since the original model launched 18 years ago.

The obstacles are significant: Apple has spent decades building a complex supply chain in China. Relocating iPhone production to the U.S. would require years of planning, billions in capital investment, and could triple the cost of an iPhone—jeopardizing demand for its flagship product.

"The concept of making iPhones in the US is a non-starter," said Dan Ives, an analyst at Wedbush Securities. He estimated that an iPhone currently selling for $1,000 could cost more than $3,000 if made domestically. Production couldn’t be fully relocated until at least 2028, he said. “Price points would move so dramatically, it’s hard to comprehend.”

Apple declined to comment on Wednesday. The Cupertino, California-based company has not publicly addressed Trump’s new tariffs, but the issue may come up on May 1 when CEO Tim Cook holds a quarterly earnings call with analysts.

The impact of the tariffs is already being felt. Apple shares have dropped 15 percent since the latest tariff hikes began on April 2, wiping out $500 billion in market value.

If the tariffs remain in place, Apple is widely expected to eventually raise prices on its products, given its heavy reliance on supply chains in China, India, and other regions affected by the trade war.

The key question is how long Apple can maintain current pricing before shrinking profit margins force the company to pass the costs to consumers.

Apple does have some cushion. Its services division—generating $96 billion in revenue last fiscal year from subscriptions and software—remains unaffected by the tariffs, said Forrester Research analyst Dipanjan Chatterjee.

“Apple can absorb some of the tariff-induced cost increases without significant financial impact, at least in the short term,” Chatterjee said.

In February, Apple announced plans to spend $500 billion and hire 20,000 workers in the US through 2028—though none of the investment is tied to domestic iPhone production. Instead, the company pledged to build a data center in Houston to support its growing artificial intelligence efforts.

Asked this week whether President Trump believes Apple will start making iPhones in the US, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt pointed to Apple’s investment commitment as evidence. “If Apple didn’t think the United States could do it, they probably wouldn’t have put up that big chunk of change,” Leavitt said.

US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick also predicted that the tariffs would eventually force Apple to shift manufacturing stateside. “The army of millions and millions of human beings screwing in little screws to make iPhones—that kind of thing is going to come to America,” Lutnick said on April 6 during a CBS News appearance.

But Apple CEO Tim Cook has long expressed skepticism about the US labor force’s ability to handle such manufacturing. Speaking at a 2017 conference in China, Cook said, “In the US you could have a meeting of tooling engineers and I’m not sure we could fill the room. In China, you could fill multiple football fields.”

Trump similarly pushed Apple to bring iPhone production to the US during his first term. While Apple ultimately escaped tariffs on iPhones at that time, the company began diversifying its supply chain—leading to current iPhone production in India and manufacturing of other products in Vietnam.

Cook also gave Trump a 2019 tour of an Apple plant in Texas, where the company had been assembling some Mac computers since 2013. Afterward, Trump took credit for the facility. “Today I opened a major Apple Manufacturing plant in Texas that will bring high paying jobs back to America,” he posted on Nov. 19, 2019—despite the fact the plant had opened under President Obama.

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