美专家为何称尽管特朗普施压，但苹果可能永远不会在美生产手机？

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特朗普威胁要对苹果加征关税

美国有线电视新闻网2025年5月28日（星期三）刊登与美国制造业专家的对话，认为尽管特朗普不断对苹果公司首席执行官库克施加压日，但考虑到美国与中国、印度等国家在智能制造业方面的巨大差异，苹果可能永远不会将手机的生产转移到美国。主要内容如下：

一、特朗普继奥巴马之后向苹果施压

据《纽约时报》报道，2011年，时任美国总统巴拉克·奥巴马曾向当时的苹果首席执行官史蒂夫·乔布斯施压，询问他如何才能将iPhone的生产转回美国。

十四年后，唐纳德·特朗普总统又多次向现任苹果首席执行官蒂姆·库克提出了这个问题，而且进一步施加压力。

针对本月早些时候苹果首席执行官蒂姆·库克表示预计运往美国的iPhone大部分将从印度发货，特朗普威胁称，除非苹果和其他智能手机公司在美国本土生产面向美国销售的手机，否则将对其征收高达25%的关税。

5月23日（周五），特朗普在其“真相社交”上发帖称：“我早就告诉苹果的蒂姆·库克，我希望在美国销售的iPhone都能在美国制造和生产，而不是在印度或其他任何地方。如果做不到这一点，苹果必须向美国支付至少25%的关税。”

重振美国制造业一直是特朗普总统任期的核心目标。在其第二个任期的前三个月内，他发起了一场关税闪电战，宣称对几乎所有海外制造的产品征收关税，以增加美国就业机会，并重新平衡他所认为的美国贸易伙伴的不公平做法。

苹果首席执行官蒂姆·库克与中国消费者互动

二、美国制造业专家称制造业已经发生根本性变化

美国制造业协会执行董事卡罗琳·李指出，自上世纪70年代以来，“制造业的工作已经发生了很大变化”，现代制造业岗位需要编码和数据分析等技能。

在美国生产iPhone将颠覆苹果制造其最赚钱产品的方式。将iPhone的生产转移到美国意味着要离开拥有每年生产数亿部手机的中国和印度的高度专业化的劳动力及他们所掌握的熟练技能。一些分析师估计，如果苹果将手机生产转加美国，可能导致iPhone大幅涨价或被迫变更生产设计。

市场研究公司Forrester的副总裁兼首席分析师迪潘詹·查特吉说甚至认为“这根本上行不通。”他指出，中国已经拥有庞大的专门用于组装电子产品的工厂体系。苹果长期的iPhone组装合作伙伴富士康在旺季雇佣的技术熟练的员工高达90万人。这些工人就住在生产车间附近的宿舍里，这使得制造商在几乎没有通知的情况下调整生产计划变得更加容易。他们所从事生产流高度专业化，这不是一种容易复制的“一刀切”模式。

国际市场研究公司凯度的高级副总裁大卫·马科特也认为：“制造每个组件的专业知识需要长期积累。”还有一个问题是美国已难以雇用到足够的制造业员工。美国劳工统计局的数据显示，美国的制造业一直在衰退，截至今年早些时候，只有8%的美国工人在制造业就业，而1970年这一比例约为26%。

苹果加大对印度的投资

三、苹果被迫在保护自身利益和满足特朗普要求上走钢丝

为满足特朗普的要求，苹果今年2月表示，计划在未来四年投资5000亿美元扩大其在美国的业务，这笔资金将用于加强研发工作、开设新的服务器制造工厂以支持其Apple Intelligence软件功能，以及在底特律成立一所学院，向企业传授智能制造技术和人工智能。特朗普已将这笔投资和台湾芯片制造商台积电承诺的1000亿美元在美投资称为他的政治胜利及朝着将更多科技生产转移到美国本土的第一步。

但根据苹果的新闻稿，该学院将面向中小企业，而不是像中国或印度那样培训工人或建设生产iPhone的基础设施。

库克早就承认在生产iPhone方面美国与中国劳动力的差距。他在2017年《财富》杂志的一次活动中形容中国的制造业环境结合了“工匠”技能、“先进的机器人技术”和“计算机科学领域”。

他说：“这种多领域的结合在任何地方都很难找到，这种技能对我们的业务非常重要，因为我们追求的精度和质量水平需要这样的技能。”

分析公司Moor Insights & Strategy的创始人兼首席执行官帕特里克·摩尔黑德认为，苹果有可能在五年内将部分iPhone的生产转移到美国。但他表示，这需要将一些流程自动化，以弥补美国与中国和印度之间的技能差距。这也可能涉及改变iPhone的设计以适应更多自动化，例如改变某些组件的粘合方式。

韦德布什证券的全球科技研究主管丹·艾夫斯上个月告诉CNN，苹果的许多供应商都位于中国，生产流程都集中在中国和印度，因此即使只是将组装转移到美国，也意味着要进一步远离关键零部件，在美国生产iPhone可能会使设备的价格上涨两倍。

Forrester的查特吉表示，苹果面临着艰难的决定：“因为从经济角度看，你既不可能真正将生产转移到美国，但在这种氛围下你又不能直接（对特朗普）说‘不，我不会这么做’，所以苹果必须尽可能长时间地在中国和印度生产其产品和满足特朗普的要求之间走钢丝。”

Why Apple doesn’t make iPhones in America – and probably won’t. By Lisa Eadicicco, CNN. Wed May 28, 2025

In 2011, then-President Barack Obama pressed Apple CEOSteve Jobs on what it would take to bring iPhone production to the United States, according to The New York Times.

Fourteen years later, President Donald Trump is resurfacing that question to current Apple CEO Tim Cook – and the stakes are a lot higher. Trump threatened a hefty 25% tariff against Apple and other smartphone companiesunless they manufacture phones sold in the US stateside.

“I have long ago informed Tim Cook of Apple that I expect their iPhone’s that will be sold in the United States of America will be manufactured and built in the United States, not India, or anyplace else,” Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday. “If that is not the case, a Tariff of at least 25% must be paid by Apple to the U.S.”

Earlier this month, Apple CEO Tim Cook said he expected the majority of US-bound iPhones to be shipped from India.

Reviving US manufacturing has been a tentpole goal of Trump’s presidency. Within the first three months of his second term, he went on a tariff blitz, promising to impose levies on nearly every product made abroad in an effort to boost jobs in the US and rebalance what he saw as unfair practices by America’s trading partners.

But experts who spoke with CNN said making iPhones in the United States would upend the way Applebuilds its most lucrative product. Moving iPhone production to the US would mean shifting away from countries like China and India that have thehighly specialized workforce and skills needed to produce the millions of iPhones that Apple ships each year. The result could mean price hikes or design changes for the iPhone, some analysts estimate.

“It just fundamentally doesn’t work,” said Dipanjan Chatterjee, vice president and principal analyst at market research firm Forrester.

Apple did not respond to CNN’s request for comment on whether it plans to shift iPhone production to the US.

China already has a sprawling system of plants tailored specifically for assembling electronics. Foxconn, Apple’s longtime iPhone assembly partner, employs 900,000 people in its peak season, although it’s unclear how much of that employment occurs in China and is related to iPhone work. Workers live in dormitories, making it easier to shift production plans with little notice, as Chatterjee points out. Production processes are highly specialized depending on the product; it’s not a “one size fits all” approach that’s easy to replicate.

“The expertise to make each of the components is something that has to be worked on for a long period of time,” said David Marcotte, senior vice president at international market research company Kantar.

There’s also the question of whether there’s enough demand for factory jobs in America. Manufacturing has been on the decline in the United States, with only 8% of American workers holding jobs in that sector as of earlier this year compared to roughly 26% in 1970, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics,

And a lot has changed since 1970.

Carolyn Lee, executive director of the Manufacturing Institute, previously told CNN that “the job has very much changed” and that modern manufacturing roles involve skills like coding and data analytics.

Apple said in February that it plans to invest $500 billion in growing its US footprint over the next four years, which will go towards boosting its research and development efforts, opening a new facility to manufacture servers to support its Apple Intelligence software features and launching a Detroit academy to teach companies about smart manufacturing techniques and AI. Trump has declared this investment – along with a $100 billion commitment from Taiwan-based chipmaker TSMC to expand in the US – a political win and a step towards onshoring more tech production.

But Apple’s academy will be for small-to medium-sized businesses, according to Apple’s press release, not training workers or building infrastructure to produce iPhones the way it is done in China or India.

Cook has acknowledged the gap in labor required to produce iPhones in the US. Speaking at a Fortune Magazine event in 2017, he described the manufacturing environment in China as providing a combination of “craftsman” skills, “sophisticated robotics” and “the computer science world.”

“That intersection, which is very rare to find anywhere, that kind of skill, which is very important for our business because of the precision and quality level that we like,” he said.

Mohit Kumar, CEO and founder of smart ring maker Ultrahuman, has firsthand experience shifting production of a tech product to the US from India. Ultrahuman began producing its finger-worn health tracker in Texas in November after partnering with electronics manufacturer SVtronics. The smart ring company automated more tasks to avoid higher labor costs in the United States and hired workers that were trained in multiple steps of the process – such as casting and polishing rings – rather than just one of those steps, he told CNN.

The topic came up in April, with US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick telling CNBC that Cook said Apple needs “robotic arms” to build iPhones in the United States at the same scale and precision as its facilities abroad.

Patrick Moorhead, founder and CEO of analysis firm Moor Insights & Strategy, thinks Apple could feasibly shift some iPhone production to the US in five years. But that would involve automating some processes to account for the skill gap in America compared to China and India, he says. That could also involve changing the iPhone’s design to accommodate more automation, such as changing how certain components are glued together.

Many of Apple’s suppliers are based in China, so transitioning to the US even just for assembly would mean shifting further away from critical components. Dan Ives, global head of technology research for Wedbush Securities, told CNN last month via email that an estimated 90% of the iPhone’s production process takes place in China, although he says that number is closer to 40% now that Apple has shifted more production to India. He has also estimated that making iPhones in the United States could triple the price of the device.

Apple is faced with a tough decision either way, says Forrester’s Chatterjee, despite Cook’s meeting with Trump last week and the $1 million donation he made to Trump’s inauguration, according to Axios.

“Because neither can you realistically, from an economic standpoint, bring production to the US, nor is it really tenable in this climate to say, ‘No, I won’t do that,’” he said. “So you’ve got to walk that fine line, that tightrope, for as long as you can.”