- Mar 14, 2023
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Why Trump’s Metal Tariffs Won’t Lead to the All-American iPhone
You need aluminum to make an iPhone, but Trump’s 25 percent tariff shouldn’t directly affect the price.
This article discusses how modern cell phones are made, and the metal, and
the computer chips that they use.
Tarriffs on metals, will not much affect the cost of cell phones, IF they were
made in America.
BUT, the silicon chips that cell phones use, are OFTEN manufactured (but
NOT DESIGNED) in Taiwan, by the leading manufacturer of computer chips
in the world, TSMC.
It is a crude misunderstanding that Taiwan "stole" the manufacturing of computer
chips, from the West. What Taiwan has done, is put enormous effort and discipline
into building more and more precise (and smaller) computerized chips, so that
the rest of the world tends to brings its best chip designs to TSMC, for TSMC to
build. And, TSMC builds chips with such a low rate of rejection, that it can build
these chips cheaper than the rest of the world.
One reason why Communist China wants to take Taiwan, is to seize these high
quality chip manufacturing gactories, and their employees.
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Another point of fairness... TSMC has agreed to build a chip manufacturing
factory in America, BUT... their main probleem is that they CANNOT GET THE
QUALITY EMPLOYEES, WHO ARE HIGHLY EDUCATED, AND HIGHTLY DISCIPLINED,
TO WORK IN THE FACTORY. The work requires long hour shifts, and highly
disciplined employees, who work for NOT outrageous salaries. And, America cannot
produce enough of these quality employees.
The bottom line is that the manufacture of cell phones will not return to America,
this year. And, if American standards of producing quality workers does not
improve (the poor standards of reading and STEM skills is just the tip of the iceberg),
then producing all the components for world class cell phones will NOT return to
America. Regardless of all the bluster and BullSpeak about America being the best
in everything....
Perhaps TSMC could take the best of the ditched federal government workers, and
retrain them to work in high tech chip manufacturing factories.
