Bad News For Trump's New (Made In China) Smartphone Venture
Earlier this week, the Trump Organization (President Donald Trump's family-run business) unveiled its latest business venture – a smartphone that the company says is made in the United States. But that's an impossible feat, according to one American smartphone manufacturer.
ABC News reported that Trump Mobile will soon roll out a new phone dubbed the "T1," which its selling for $499 apiece. The company is offering plans for $47.45 per month (a nod to Trump being the 45th and 47th president of the United States) and promises to use the same communication networks that the biggest three cell service providers rely on for their coverage (Verizon, T-Mobile and AT&T). CNBC reported that the phones will likely be made in China.
And according to Todd Weaver, who is the founder and CEO of Purism — the only smartphone manufacturer based in the U.S. — there's no way to end-run China in the supply chain. Weaver told NBC News on Wednesday that making a phone entirely in the United States costs a lot more than what the Trump Organization is aiming to get for the T1 phones.
Purism's Liberty phone, which costs $2,000, has a higher price tag than the iPhone 16 Pro, and only half of its memory capacity. It's also significantly thicker, and users are somewhat limited in the number of apps they can install on the device. And Weaver said that while approximately 90 percent of the phone's components come from the United States, Canada and Europe, a crystal that makes the device's motherboard work is only available in China.
"There just isn’t a company yet providing that single crystal," Weaver told NBC.
Weaver also said that it took approximately six years from the time Purism was founded in 2014 to the point where it could start manufacturing phones, whereas Trump Mobile has promised to build a phone from scratch in the United States and begin selling it this August. The Purism CEO added that Trump's mercurial approach toward imposing tariffs makes it very difficult for business owners like him to adapt to an economic climate that's constantly in flux.
“It’s terrible,” Weaver said. “If you have no idea, and you can’t predict [the policy], it’s very hard for any company, for any business owner. From t-shirts, textiles, to high tech, it is very hard to make a long term business decision when you’re in a whipsaw.”
Reprinted with permission from Alternet.
