• @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    English
    647 days ago

    Instead of Vietnamese children making t-shirts to sell to the USA, they want American children to make t-shirts to sell to Vietnam.

    This makes absolutely no fucking sense even from a nationalistic standpoint.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      English
      197 days ago

      Nah man, they’ll start using the prisons for more then menial labor. You don’t have to pay them at all

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        English
        87 days ago

        But then they have to fill those prisons with more and more people. How can America just increase the crime rate on a whim?

        glances briefly to American history

        Oh right, shit.

        • Gormadt
          link
          fedilink
          English
          1
          edit-2
          6 days ago

          Slavery never ended in the US, it just got better PR.

          “Only prisoners can be sentenced to slave labor.”

          Makes a while bunch of stuff punishable by prison time and makes prison sentences longer.

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    English
    49
    edit-2
    7 days ago

    Its looking more and more like the end result is just going to be millions of Americans will have to do without, Live with less.

    and no doubt at the same time their oligarch fantasy-wealthy overlords will preach to them about Spartan values or something. Ultranationalist Jingo Ghouls will talk about how its tough times create strong men, or about how we all have to prepare for war with China or something.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      English
      77 days ago

      will preach to them about Spartan values or something

      Spartans kinda invented separation of branches of power. Not all bad things.

      But since they were a slave-holding polity, where actual citizens of Sparta were the occupiers and the helot population hated them with passion, that didn’t last for too long.

      Also the real world attempt at Spartan values (in philosophy) was the USSR, you can trace the ideas and how it was built architecturally, didn’t work too well. Of the “layers of citizenry” too, their workers turned into poets, their warriors turned into slaves, and their philosophers turned into thieves.

      USA in any case just can’t be that, not in this century.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        English
        26 days ago

        Also the real world attempt at Spartan values (in philosophy) was the USSR

        ???

        You are going to really have to expand on the argument there.

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    English
    336 days ago

    They are promising to gut the CHIPS Act which would be needed to even think about doing this.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      English
      10
      edit-2
      6 days ago

      Apple tried this in the past. Who knew making special little screws was way more expensive to make in the US. Kind of sucks when you outsource all of your manufacturing …

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        English
        36 days ago

        I ran into this at work today. Proposed a very simple approach for something to an architect and an engineering lead. Engineering lead said this was a practical solution that solves a problem that’s been plaguing them for two years. The architect nearly immediately said, “well, the real source is a mainframe that was stood up in the very early 80s. Let’s ignore the fact that changing it takes an act of Congress or that we have multiple modern downstream systems between it and us that are a much better home for this new function.”

        It really seemed to amount to, “I didn’t come up with this, therefore I don’t support it.”

        Ah, corporate politics.

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    English
    326 days ago

    Maybe if wages actually rose with productivity, Americans could actually afford goods made within the United States.

        • @[email protected]
          link
          fedilink
          English
          56 days ago

          Hahaha

          This whole presidency is raised for maximizing CEO income and no taxes for everyone at the top.

          It will be interesting if Trump actually manages to pull it off, because he’ll make the US swap places with China:
          No one trusts the country anymore, but if it has low enough wages and proper production capability it will produce everything cheaply just to export it all overseas where the luxury goods will be sold. Of course all profits will be made overseas, not in the US because hardly anyone can afford the luxury items no more.

          Meanwhile the production states will get deep smog clouds and intense small coal particle pollution in return. And the need for face masks will be back…

        • @[email protected]
          link
          fedilink
          English
          36 days ago

          That the real issue right there. But that’s why all the manufacturing went out of the country in the first place. Often because businesses were sold, or passed on to their children. Then the new owners were only doing it for the money.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        English
        15
        edit-2
        6 days ago

        The sheer amount of money being removed by the 1 percent is regoddamndiculous. It’s something like 45 trillion dollars since wages diverged from productivity in 1975.

      • MrScottyTay
        link
        fedilink
        English
        36 days ago

        That’s one of the issues with how we’ve (most western capitalist countries) been doing this.

        People are struggling for money so minimum wage goes up. Labour to create things is now more expensive and prices go up.

        There is only one solution and that’s to theoretically (or technically) eating the rich that are hoarding all of the wealth.

        • @[email protected]
          link
          fedilink
          English
          26 days ago

          What really needs to stop is the obscene bonus culture. It is quite disgusting to keep reading a company needs to lay off 500 people only to then give some CEO a bonus of 15million. Or banks running a deep 9 digit number loss in a year but still the higher ups get a bonus for some reason or a vague years old contractual promise. The top should feel loss first before it “trickles down”, and honest pay for honest work should include the top as well.

          And while I am at it, senseless management jobs should be allowed to be contested, no more “manager toiletpaper” who only shows up once a week to make an order, yet makes 5x the wages of people under him.

          • MrScottyTay
            link
            fedilink
            English
            16 days ago

            That would be one step in the theoretical eating of the rich, yes.

          • @[email protected]
            link
            fedilink
            English
            16 days ago

            Yeah, like a couple years ago, the CEO of Sanford Health hospitals quit / retired, and when he left gave himself a 17 million dollar bonus. No wonder medical bills are so high. Gotta have that needless bonus.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      English
      40
      edit-2
      7 days ago

      Bold of you to assume that Trump and Company won’t put the average American to work for almost nothing. The planned economic recession is to convince the people to do so.

      The new generation of American children will not spend most of their time studying in school, but rather working in factories for a handful of peanuts. That’s Trump’s America.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      English
      47 days ago

      China has a lot more leverage to increase this price. Export tariffs on US listed companies to US, and perhaps to countries that choose to further increase sycophancy to US empire. Prevent US manufacturing with more export controls.

      The problem with decades of propaganda/smearing is that too many people believe it. Bessent yesterday said “They only have a pair of 2s” as cards. No one in the room has not been programmed to “repeat that China is on brink of collapse for all of the last 20 years”. Hitler couldn’t win war because generals had to be loyal to every syphilis inspired thought of the dotard.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      English
      17 days ago

      shouldn’t affect sales though because apple fanboys will sell their grandmother to buy the latest status symbol phone

  • Ben Matthews
    link
    fedilink
    English
    39
    edit-2
    7 days ago

    As a global company, Apple could just re-establish itself in europe, e.g. Ireland, and continue trading with China, they can just put the US on hold for a couple of years.
    Meanwhile for those who really addicted to istuff, coyotes can smuggle iphones across the border, so maybe this solves the fentanyl ‘issue’.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      English
      167 days ago

      The people addicted to apple products will just buy it even with a 100%+ tariff. To them it’s a status thing.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        English
        47 days ago

        While I don’t doubt this, I’m also sure that tarrifs will also affect the pricing/availability of utility (non-status symbol) mobile devices.

        We are going to have to deal with this for 4 years (unless some Rs will vote the remove in 2) and recovery won’t be immediate. I hope my current mobile lasts that long, but I usually only get about 3 years out of a battery. Replacement parts will be hit by tarrifs, too.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        English
        2
        edit-2
        7 days ago

        The Galaxy S series and the Pixel devices cost about the same tbh, with some of the foldable models being particularly expensive. Buying way too much phone isn’t exclusive to Apple users. Apple is just clever by not really providing an entry-level priced phone. It’s both a scumbag move to make more money, but also a way to make sure that inferior devices providing an inferior experience don’t ruin their rep.

        • @[email protected]
          link
          fedilink
          English
          37 days ago

          The Galaxy S series and the Pixel devices cost about the same tbh

          So? That’s not what the person you replied was even saying. You completely missed the point of their comment.

          • @[email protected]
            link
            fedilink
            English
            16 days ago

            I was pointing out that it’s not only Apple users who pay out the ass for their phones. It transcends brand loyalty. Everyone is spending too much on phones and will continue to do so even if prices rise.

    • 𝕸𝖔𝖘𝖘
      link
      fedilink
      English
      117 days ago

      This is actually one of the best solutions to this problem I’ve seen this whole time. Expand it to include all affected US companies. What’s she point of being a global company, if you can’t leverage your globalized nature for your advantage?

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        English
        77 days ago

        Also shows how much they actually can’t or won’t leave based just on just a (much needed) tax increase.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      English
      77 days ago

      But it’s a bitch to strap them on a coyote and get it go where you want it to go. Oh coyote as in a smuggler not the 4 legged canine type

      • Ben Matthews
        link
        fedilink
        English
        67 days ago

        Yeah, but you just gave me an idea too, how about AI-directed canines? “apple-intelligence” applied to follow-your-nose. My dog loves to chase small spots of light, which might be a trick to steer them.

        • @[email protected]
          link
          fedilink
          English
          77 days ago

          Lmao the image of a coyote with a belt of iPhones around its belly and a laser mounted on a rotating turret on its back chasing the dot across the border is quite something.

    • NιƙƙιDιɱҽʂ
      link
      fedilink
      English
      67 days ago

      coyotes can smuggle iphones across the border

      Aaaaand the US is the new North Korea…

      • Ben Matthews
        link
        fedilink
        English
        36 days ago

        Indeed it seems Trump picked up some ideas about “Juche” (national self-reliance?) from his best buddy “rocket-man”.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      English
      67 days ago

      Apple already has an entity in Ireland which is the one that has most of the money. Google as well. When I pay my Google cloud bills, I don’t pay the us business, but a separate EU incorporated business. So I think, if apple sells to Europe, none of the iPhones or iPhone parts have to go through the US or pay any tarrifs.

      • Ben Matthews
        link
        fedilink
        English
        17 days ago

        And if chinese buy iphones, do they now have to pay 84% tariff? - maybe HQ in europe solves that too?

        • @[email protected]
          link
          fedilink
          English
          7
          edit-2
          7 days ago

          Most Apple products are assembled in China — some in India and Vietnam — from parts made in the region so there’s no new tariffs involved. Only Americans will have to pay more. It’s sort of like how Toyota and Honda having plants in Alabama won’t pay import tariffs.

          Cars might be a bad example because their supply chains are so complex. They’ll still be more expensive because the components are often made overseas and Trump, idiotically, has tariffs on those parts (and steel and aluminum to boot). But a “foreign” car that rolls off the assembly line in the U.S. won’t have tariffs while an “American” car assembled in Mexico will.

          • @[email protected]
            link
            fedilink
            English
            27 days ago

            But other businesses only have distributions centers in the US. So they import to US, pay tarrifs, and then I can buy from them in Europe, so indirectly I also paid the tarrifs. Even though product was made in China and I live in Europe.

            • @[email protected]
              link
              fedilink
              English
              27 days ago

              If anything good comes from this, it’ll be reforming that. Even if tariffs were still a couple percentage points instead of based on a formula zero economists endorsed, you shouldn’t be forced to pay (or the companies able to avoid) tariffs by using a distribution center in a third country. It should all be based on country of origin and final destination.

              A Chinese (or American) company setting up a factory in Vietnam is an entirely different thing. I’m not talking about that. The product was made in Vietnam and real foreign direct investment happened that’s beneficial to everyone. I just mean logistics hubs should be irrelevant when calculating tariffs.

              The “ideal” solution if we must use tariffs would be to take into account where it’s all made but that’s way too complicated to implement and easy to game1, unfortunately. An iPhone is assembled in China but using parts from all over Southeast Asia (and elsewhere) and with a substantial portion of the actual value coming from California and the UK. Where is an iPhone really made if a Taiwan Semiconductor fab makes a bespoke processor based on ARM but designed in California? “Made in China” is what’s stamped on the box (actually they put “Made in China, Designed in California).

              And that’s just the processor and a few other advanced chips. I think Samsung makes the screens in South Korea based on technology developed in the U.S. by Corning. If Apple wanted to skirt tariffs under that sort of regime, they could plausibly argue that the assembly is worth $10, manufacturing is worth $90, and the design and software are worth $900. I mean, smartphones are commodities now. People use iPhones because they like the software.

              Tariffs based on the final step of assembly don’t make sense for complicated products made by multinational companies in the 21st century. The world makes an iPhone. Accounting for it all would be impossible.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      English
      47 days ago

      Hehe that is funny, sadly I think the US is Apples biggest market, so they probably wouldn’t want to let go and give up any marketshare.

      US usually is the most important market for most (international) companies I believe.

      • Ben Matthews
        link
        fedilink
        English
        47 days ago

        US has only 4% of the world’s population, there are now plenty of super-rich in China, India, etc. who like to flaunt i-stuff.

    • Sabata
      link
      fedilink
      English
      47 days ago

      Let me check if my silicon dealer can hook you up…

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    English
    277 days ago

    This guy just spews his bullshit, Would it be nice if they could be made in United States? Yeah sure but the thing is an iPhone would cost like $3500. And I know damn straight I’m not paying that much for a phone. And I’m pretty sure you guys wouldn’t either and that’s coming from someone that sometimes makes some stupid financial decisions and that is not one I would make

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      English
      15
      edit-2
      7 days ago

      If Apple didn’t try to make 400% markup on their underpowered trash, it would probably just cost what it costs now. Except the child slave labor part would go away.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        English
        167 days ago

        Except the child slave labor part would go away.

        That’s the neat part, the republicans are trying to repeal child labor laws.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        English
        10
        edit-2
        7 days ago

        underpowered trash

        I hate to say it, but it’s actually quite powerful trash that they produce.

        • Darren
          link
          fedilink
          English
          97 days ago

          Yeah, I’m in the process of shifting all of my workflows over to Linux/Android from all-Apple, but my Macs are a huge sticking point. My main computer is an M2 Macbook Air, which is ridiculously quick. I’m basically just waiting for Asahi to gain display port over USB, at which point I’ll ditch macOS. But until then…

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        English
        37 days ago

        My almost five year old piece of under powered apple trash cost me less than 45 US cents a day, still has regular OS updates and works between eight to ten hours most days running my entire life. I might even splurge out and buy a new one if they ever release an overpowered non trash handset…

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      English
      -16 days ago

      I mean I would pay a premium for a made in America phone. Probably about 2 times as much. Iphones just suck ass so I’d never pay for one at all

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      English
      126 days ago

      The Trump base will blame Obama/Biden/Clinton, I guarantee it.

      It must be so freeing to live a life more divorced from logic or reality than an indoor dog.

      Maybe eliminating natural selection was a mistake.

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    English
    97 days ago

    US can’t manufacture iPhones, but it can manufacture other things. That you can’t build Versaille overnight doesn’t mean you can’t plant a few flowers and lay one square stone.

    I think SPARC CPUs were manufactured in the USA even in 00s.

    The whole re-industrialization idea is good, people making something know it’s not magical and wonderful. That an ARM CPU in an iPhone is a relative of an MC in a toy, and that said MC’s internal structure can be grasped in an evening.

    Worker jobs in manufacture affect societies very well. Just believing that this is going to happen means believing yet another US administration promising something until its term ends.

    • NιƙƙιDιɱҽʂ
      link
      fedilink
      English
      3
      edit-2
      7 days ago

      Which is what subsidies are for. Encourage companies to do the things you want, don’t destroy the economy by making everything else impractical lmao. I see what the end goal is, supposedly, it’s just an extremely stupid, naive, or outright malicious way of accomplishing it.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      English
      77 days ago

      Probably just lean super heavily on Taiwan, and Taiwan is also pledging to build a chip factory in the US. Georgia area, IIRC.

      Batteries fucking suck. Can’t live with 'em, can’t live without 'em…but they’re always saying we’re on the cusp of an exciting new battery technology. Lately, they’re touting the idea of better, more efficient sodium batteries with all organic components.

      While obviously it has a ways to go to reach working parity with lithium, there are also some big pros when it comes to safety & the ridiculous availability of sodium. If we can switch to sodium batteries, China takes a fucking massive hit.

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    English
    -16 days ago

    Toyota is able to build Camrys, Highlanders, Tundras, etc. in the US. So I don’t see why we can’t have a factory in the US to build the iPhone?

    Does building an iPhone require more manual labor than building a car? Maybe it requires more precision than cars, but I don’t see why we can’t train and equip people to do it here.

    There are microchips being made in the US today. See Intel. Maybe not the latest process node but it is not an outdated node either.

          • @[email protected]
            link
            fedilink
            English
            16 days ago

            I 100% agree, and hope that remains to be an option. But also… things can change, and they can change fast. We are all only a few days of missed meals or missed mortgage payments from having very different standards.

            • @[email protected]
              link
              fedilink
              English
              16 days ago

              Step 1 - Create a depression unlike we have ever seen and make people desperate for any job they can get.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      English
      46 days ago

      You absolutely can, but the price of the workers for these kinds of things are way higher in the US as opposed to China. Also, if Apple could automate away manual labour to the point it would be economically viable they sure as heck would’ve done so already. Price increases using US-based manual labour are inevitable - its one of the major reasons why the global market is as it is today, cheap labour in developing countries.

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    English
    -46 days ago

    So you people finally admit you want and need slave work to satisfy your petty desires?

    Good, good! Baby steps