- The Trump Organization says a new T1 Phone will launch in August
- It will apparently be “designed and built in the United States”
- But experts say the phone is more likely to have Chinese origins
The Trump Mobile T1 Phone is undoubtedly one of the strangest phones ever made, mixing odd specs (a 3.5mm headphone jack) with ones that make no sense (“5000mAh long life camera”). However, it also comes with a big claim that it’ll be “designed and built in the United States.”
Given that analysts recently told us that “the idea of making iPhones in the US is a stretch”, is this really possible? Or will the manufacturing reality of the “sleek, gold smartphone” be a bit more complicated?
We asked smartphone supply chain experts for their verdict on the Trump Mobile T1 and whether it really can meet those lofty “made in the USA” goals.
With the T1 arriving in August for $499, it could theoretically steal some thunder from the rumored iPhone 17 – but there are good reasons to suspect that Apple won’t be losing any sleep over its unexpected, gold-colored rival from Trump Mobile…
The claim
The Trump Organization has made some typically bold claims about the T1 – it’s been billed as the phone that will spark a new era in US phone manufacturing.
In a press release, the Trump family business stated that the T1 is “proudly designed and built in the United States for customers who expect the best from their mobile carrier”. Elsewhere, the site claims it has been “built for patriots by patriots”.
Expanding on the claims, Eric Trump stated on “The Benny Show” podcast that “eventually, all the phones can be built in the United States of America”.
Yet the Trump Mobile site is short on specific details about how and where the Trump T1 phone will be made. According to experts, there are good reasons to suspect that this will be ambitious at best…
The reality
- Experts agree the Trump phone won’t meet its “made in the USA” claims
- It will likely be a modified Android phone from a Chinese manufacturer
- But the Trump Mobile T1 could theoretically still be assembled in the USA
The Trump Mobile T1 won’t meet the strict definition of “made in the USA” for a few reasons, experts say – and these also explain why moving iPhone manufacturing to the USA is unlikely in the near future.
Firstly, “made in the USA” has a high bar. Professor Tinglong Dai, who teaches at the Johns Hopkins University Carey Business School, told us: “The FTC [Federal Trade Commission] has a strict standard for “Made in USA”: all or almost all parts and processing must be domestic. Judging by that standard, the claim is unrealistic.”
But there could be ways around that. “The Trump Organization’s “built in America” language isn’t an official designation, so there’s plenty of wiggle room for them to make that claim,” Dai added.
Ben Hatton, market analyst at CCS Insight, agrees. “Our expectation is that the T1 Phone will work around this by virtue of assembly in the US using parts from elsewhere,” he told us.
On that subject, TechRadar’s Editor at Large, Lance Ulanoff, also noted: “There’s just one company that builds phones in the US, Purism. Its specs don’t match up. Even if it is assembled somewhere in Trump Castle, they’re still almost certainly sourcing components outside the US.”
So, what phone will the T1 be based on? That’s still something of a mystery. “The phone will probably be a custom-modified Android smartphone from a Chinese manufacturer,” Ben Hatton from CCS Insight told us. That seems highly likely – we tried putting the T1’s specs into GSMArena’s phone finder for existing phones, and it came up blank.
Why can’t phones be made in the USA?
So what does all this mean for the grand ambition of manufacturing phones in the US? And why isn’t it possible?
“The main challenge is that we don’t have an end-to-end tech supply chain, and the U.S. lacks the manufacturing capacity for several key components. Even if we do, the lack of skilled workers would be a main bottleneck,” Dai explained.
Ben Hatton from CCS Insight agrees that a true “made in the USA” phone is unlikely to happen for a long time, if ever. “The US is unlikely to have enough labor with the right skills for this to be achievable in anything other than the long-term. The costs of labor would then go through the roof due to this skills shortage,” he added.
“Upending 50 years of supply-chain evolution by making companies move facilities would also mean totally reshaping these chains by making the US the ‘focal point’ rather than China,” he concluded. In other words, it’s completely unrealistic and not compatible with the complexities of smartphones or our globalized tech world.
To sum that up, Professor Tinglong Dai concluded: “A bigger issue is that there’s really no such thing as a fully domestic supply chain.” You may have read the classical essay, “I, Pencil” – even for something as simple as a pencil, you’re talking about dozens of countries behind it, and that’s before the current global supply chain era,” he noted.
To see the equivalent for an iPhone, check out the excellent ‘Mapping the iPhone’ infographic from ArcGIS StoryMaps, which shows just how complex smartphone supply chains are.
So while The Trump Mobile T1 may carry the “made in the USA” boast, experts agree it’ll be at best “assembled in the USA” – and even that hasn’t yet been officially confirmed ahead of its August launch.
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mark.wilson@futurenet.com (Mark Wilson)
