California Governor Gavin Newsom has poked fun at the smartphone unveiled on Wednesday by the Trump Organization, jumping on the mounting doubts over whether it can honor its “made in America” branding.
On Wednesday, the governor posted a link to a Daily Beast article entitled “Trump’s New ‘All-American’ Smartphone Is Made in China,” alongside the caption: “Oh.”
Newsweek has reached out to Trump Mobile, the new company marketing the phone, regarding its manufacturing origins.
Why It Matters
Despite the Trump Organization, the umbrella company for the president’s business ventures, billing the phone as American-made, experts remain skeptical over whether the U.S. possesses the necessary infrastructure or technical know-how to manufacture the “T1” entirely on U.S. soil by its September launch or at the listed price of $499. Others have also noted similarities with other devices already on the market and which hail from China, raising further questions about this made-in-America designation.
What To Know
On Monday, the Trump Organization, control of which the president ceded to his eldest sons at the start of his second term, announced the launch of Trump Mobile, its flagship cellular service—”The 47 Plan”—and the T1 Phone, billed as a “sleek, gold smartphone engineered for performance and proudly designed and built in the United States.”
Both Eric and Donald Jr. have repeatedly said that the phone will be manufactured in the U.S., though the former said that this would be done “eventually.” A representative for the Trump Organization told The Wall Street Journal that manufacturing “will be in Alabama, California and Florida.”
But many have expressed doubts as to whether this is feasible, given the current disparity in manufacturing capabilities between the U.S. and China. Supply chain expert Tinglong Dai told Newsweek earlier this week that, “barring miracles, building a smartphone entirely in the U.S. by September is all but impossible.”
Many have also pointed out the striking similarities with existing Chinese-made models, casting further doubt on the “made-in-America” claim. The Daily Beast article mentioned by Newsom cited research from Apple Insider, which found that the body of the specifications of the new gold-colored phone match with the T-Mobile REVVL 7 Pro 5G, an Android built by Chinese company Wingtech and available on Amazon for as little as $169.
What People Are Saying
Donald Trump Jr., vice president of the Trump Organization, in an interview with conservative host Benny Johnson, said the new phones were for users who want “American hardware, built by Americans here in America without the potential, you know, let’s call it back door into the hardware that some of our adversaries may have installed in there.”
Francisco Jeronimo, vice president at International Data Corp, told CNBC: “There is no way the phone was designed from scratch and there is no way it is going to be assembled in the U.S. or completely manufactured in the U.S. That is completely impossible.”
Leo Gebbie, principal analyst at CCS Insight, told Fortune there was “no serious chance” of the phones being made in the U.S. in time for their launch date, and that this “absolutely does raise the specter of the Trump Organization mobile falling foul of the tariffs that have been instigated by the Trump administration.”
Robert Atkinson, founder and president of tech-focused think tank the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, told Newsweek that the high costs of manufacturing a phone in the U.S. would preclude the possibility of the phone being sold at $499.
“I suppose if tariffs were established on imported phones then it might be price competitive,” he added, “but I doubt the price would be at or below $500, especially if the components (e.g., chips, camera, battery, screen, etc.) also had tariffs placed on them.”
What Happens Next?
Given the doubts expressed by experts, and conflicting messaging from the Trump Organization and Trump Mobile over whether and when the new phone will be manufactured in the U.S., questions remain over how the T1 will maintain the American-made designation that has marked its launch.
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