Here’s a good piece by Jason Koebler of 404 Media about how Apple will not be making an iPhone in the U.S. anytime soon:
The truth is that, assembled in the U.S. or not, the iPhone is a truly international device that is full of components manufactured all over the world and materials mined from dozens of different countries. Apple has what is among the most complex supply chains that has ever been designed in human history, and it is not going to be able to completely change that supply chain anytime soon.
It’s not one thing, it’s a whole stack of things that have evolved over a couple of decades at least. There aren’t enough trained American workers. America’s standard of living is higher, so wages would be higher, making expenses higher. Not a lot of Americans are interested in working brutal hours on factory assembly lines. The list goes on and on.
There are moves Apple can make to start mitigating its risk in terms of international assembly and U.S. tariffs (more on that from me soon), but even for mitigation we are talking about a long game, measured in decades.