When Donald Trump brought up the possibility during his election campaign, almost everyone took it in a joke: the new president of the United States said that Apple should make its "damn computers" in the United States and for a while it seems that Tim Cook and company are taking his words more seriously. In fact, yesterday Terry Gou, founder and president of the board of Foxconn, said than "Apple intends to invest in the facilities together (to Foxconn) because they need the panels too", in reference to a facility that would open in the United States.
The facilities, which rumors already spoke about earlier this month, would create between 30.000 and 50.000 jobs in the United States, just one of the wishes that Trump has been voicing for a long time. Gou says that although the theory says that creating panels in the United States would be more expensive, the rising demand for larger panels makes production in the United States a better option than importing the components from China.
Foxconn could end up manufacturing panels in the US
But, it seems, the Taiwanese manufacturer would not only stay in these facilities, but would also be planning open a new modeling plant in the United States, Pennsylvania being the most likely of the destinations in which this plant could end up.
These Foxconn moves, to which Apple would give the go-ahead, appear to be a response to Trump's wishes, but not only to his wishes, but to his threats to negotiate with NAFTA to make importing from China more expensive. So much so that another company that is responsible for manufacturing panels, the Canadian Smart Technologies, could also move to the United States due to the same threats.
Considering the price at which the iPhone 7 is sold and the iPhone 7 Plus, those of us who like Apple products can only hope that their price does not increase further. If so, what is the most likely thing that could happen?