Webush analyst Dan Ives, a noted Apple bull, described the “tariff economic armageddon,” unleashed by Trump as a “complete disaster” for Apple given its massive Chinese production exposure, reports MarketWatch.
“In our view, no U.S. tech company is more negatively impacted by these tariffs than Apple with 90% of iPhones produced and assembled in China,” he wrote.
Trump thinks iPhones can be manufactured in the U.S. However, even if they could, it would take years. The tariff agenda, according to Ives, is akin to flipping a boat upside down in the ocean with no life rafts and telling U.S. tech and auto companies like Apple, Nvidia, Microsoft, GM, AMD, and others, “Good luck!”
The analyst explained that it takes four to five years to build a factory in the U.S., adding that the U.S. labor force and cost structure “goes against the entire concept of the modern supply chain.” The economic pain brought by these tariffs could “essentially take the U.S. tech industry back a decade in the process while China steamrolls ahead,” Ives said.
“Saying we can just make this in the USA is a statement that incredibly understates the complexity of the Asia supply chain and the way electronics/chips/semi fabs/hardware/smartphones, etc. are made for U.S. consumers over the last 30 years,” he said. That supply chain, he added, is the foundation the U.S. tech world is built upon.
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