Designed in California, made in China: how the iPhone skews U.S. trade deficit

It’s been said if the iPhone were manufactured and assembled in the US of A, it would cost somewhere between $30,000 to $50,000 each.

Apple CEO Tim Cook:

There’s a confusion about China … the popular conception is that companies come to China because of low labor cost. I’m not sure what part of China they go to but the truth is, China stopped being the low labor cost country many years ago and that is not the reason to come to China from a supply point of view…

… the reason is because of the skill … and the quantity of skill in one location … and the type of skill it is. The products we do require really advanced tooling. And the precision that you have to have in tooling and working with the materials that we do are state-of-the-art. And the tooling skill is very deep here.

In the U.S. 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.

@ Reckless

You don’t get the message here, you cant produce highend products like an Iphone in the US with human labor for a reasonable price. More important is that there are no skilled workers and the infrastructure that belongs to that.