President-elect Donald Trump has said he wants Apple to start making its “damn computers and things” in the US, and he may get his wish.
Citing unnamed sources, Japanese newspaper Nikkei claims that Apple’s key manufacturing partner Foxconn “has been studying the possibility of moving iPhone production to the US.” One source reportedly told the paper that Apple in June asked Foxconn and another Taiwanese iPhone assembler Pegatron to look into making the handsets in the states.
“Foxconn complied, while Pegatron declined to formulate such a plan due to cost concerns,” the source said, according to Nikkei.
Moving iPhone production to the US would undoubtedly be more costly for Cupertino. One source told the newspaper that production costs would more than double.
Apple and Foxconn did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In 2011, Steve Jobs reportedly scoffed at the idea of bringing iPhone production to the US when asked by President Obama what it would take to make that happen.
“Those jobs aren’t coming back,” Jobs said at the time.
The following year, Apple CEO Tim Cook announced plans to bring some parts of Mac production to the US; Apple reportedly invested more than $100 million as part of that effort.
This isn’t the first time Foxconn has considered setting up shop in the US. The manufacturing giant in 2012 confirmed that it was looking to expand operations in North America, but that has not yet happened.
“We are looking at doing more manufacturing in the US because, in general, customers want more to be done there,” Louis Woo, a Foxconn spokesman, told Bloomberg Businessweek at the time.
