Why Both the Chinese and American Economies Need You to Keep Buying iPhones

Amid fears of a $3,500 iPhone that sent consumers rushing to stores, Apple was spared from Trump’s new reciprocal tariffs on Friday, at least temporarily. For the time being, iPhones—along with a vast array of other electronics—will be subjected only to the 20 percent tariff levied on virtually all Chinese goods last month. But the White House insists that one day, as a result of the tariffs, iPhones will be American-made.

Today in our pages, Patrick McGee says that idea is a fever dream. “The problem with building iPhones in America isn’t that they’d be priced at $3,500 each; it’s that they wouldn’t be built at all,” he argues.

No one understands the subject of Apple and China more deeply than McGee, who—thanks to Trump—has written maybe the best-timed book of the year. Apple in China: The Capture of the World’s Greatest Company is out May 13.

The sheer scale of what it takes to create the glass rectangle in your pocket is shocking—1,000 components across hundreds of factories with workers laboring round the clock. “What’s certain is that the U.S. and China both need Apple to succeed, albeit for very different reasons. The world’s most valuable company now finds itself caught in a cold war between two superpowers that want a divorce but need to make it work for their kid.”