The Trump family’s new mobile phone venture promises to build its golden smartphones in the U.S., an endeavor that experts warn will be nearly impossible in the current manufacturing environment.
Trump Mobile’s T1 Phone will instead likely be forced to grapple with international supply chains that rely heavily on China and have been complicated by President Trump’s own tariff regime.
“It is exceptionally difficult to see how a smartphone like the T1 device would be truly made in the U.S.,” said Leo Gebbie, an industry analyst with CSS Insight.
“[For] anyone who digs beneath the surface, it will be incredibly clear that this simply is not a realistic claim and ultimately devices cannot be made in the U.S. because of the strength of the Asia supply chain, which is so far advanced and significantly further ahead of anything that exists in the U.S. at this moment in time,” he added.
'We have to bring manufacturing back here'
The Trump Organization, currently helmed by the president’s sons, announced it would be launching a mobile phone business Monday — the anniversary of Trump’s descent down the golden escalator at Trump Tower, which marked his entrance into politics.
Trump Mobile plans to offer a $47 phone plan, an homage to Trump’s tenure as the 47th president, as well as the golden smartphones. The T1 Phone is meant to go on sale in August for $499.
“You can build these phones in the United States,” Donald Trump Jr., the president's eldest son, told podcaster Benny Johnson. “We can do it cheaper. We can do it better. And eventually, all the phones can be built in the United States of America. We have to bring manufacturing back here.”
Trump Jr.’s focus on reshoring manufacturing largely lines up with the efforts by his father’s administration, which has repeatedly cited an expansion of U.S. manufacturing capabilities as the driving factor behind its wide-ranging tariff regime.
However, experts have cautioned that bringing smartphone manufacturing back to the U.S. is largely unrealistic, requiring billions of dollars of investment over decades.
“I think it’s a nonstarter that you could produce phones in the U.S.,” Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives said. “Could they produce a few hundred, a few thousand? Possibly. But we don’t see this getting off the ground. And I think they’re going to encounter the same problems that Apple and other smartphone makers have had and why they don’t produce in the U.S.”
“You can never really scale in the U.S. You don’t have the infrastructure, the manufacturing or the skilled labor,” Ives added, noting that he views Trump Mobile more as “experimental and PR rather than a real business.”
Major obstacles
With major obstacles standing in the way of U.S. manufacturing, the company is likely to turn to other options that would still allow it to claim its products are built in the U.S., such as importing a mostly finalized product and adding finishing touches on American soil.
There is a difference between a product technically built in the U.S. and a product that can be labeled “Made in America,” noted Tinglong Dai, a professor at Johns Hopkins Carey Business School.
“For something to be ‘Made in the USA,’ you have to have certified FTC standards. Most or all the parts have to be made here, not just final assembly. Because they’re not using that exact, technical term, they have a lot of wiggle room,” Dai told The Hill, referring to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).
While an initial press release suggested the phone would be "designed and built in the United States," the official Trump Mobile website touts the phone as "MADE IN THE USA."
“They could finish assembly in China ... and then send it here. Essentially then they just append it to gold or doing something, then they call it built in the USA,” Dai said. “I don’t think the current FTC would have an issue with that.”
Trump Mobile faces Trump tariffs
As a result of the U.S.'s limited supply chain and manufacturing capability, Trump Mobile may find itself grappling with its namesake's own tariffs if it attempts to import completed phones or parts.
“There’s a very reasonable chance here that Trump’s own tariffs could come back to bite the T1,” Gebbie said.
“The componentry of a T1 device almost certainly has to come from China or from Vietnam or from India or countries in Asia Pacific, where the very high-tech supply chains required already exist,” he added.
Major tech firms such as Apple are highly dependent on supply chains that run through Asia, with China being particularly crucial to the flow of electronics. These firms have been hit hard by Trump’s tariffs against China, which at one point faced import taxes of 145 percent.
The president’s initial “reciprocal” tariffs also took aim at countries such as India and Vietnam, where tech firms have increasingly moved their manufacturing in an effort to diversity their supply chains.
Many of Trump’s tariffs have since been put on hold or drawn back, and electronics have received an exemption from the import taxes, allowing tech firms to breathe a sigh of relief. However, the president has warned he still plans to impose separate sector-specific tariffs on electronics.
Smartphone makers, including Apple and Samsung, have faced heat from Trump in recent weeks over their manufacturing practices. Apple CEO Tim Cook, who previously maintained an amicable relationship with the president, has become a particular target.
“I have long ago informed Tim Cook of Apple that I expect their iPhone’s that will be sold in the United States of America will be manufactured and built in the United States, not India, or anyplace else,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social last month.
He threatened Apple with a 25 percent tariff, which he later said would also apply to Samsung because it produces a similar product.
Beyond the complicated tariff environment, Trump Mobile faces a very short window of time before it plans to bring its T1 Phone to market, with August just six weeks away. Notably, the Trump Mobile website now states it will be available in September.
“If you are going to release something in August, this is already kind of a dream,” Dai said, noting that Trump Jr. did not offer demonstrations with the smartphone he showed off Monday.
“You should at least have a working prototype for media ... to be able to try, to be able to review. But we don’t see that,” he added.
Several outlets have also described difficulties with the new Trump Mobile website, as they have sought to test out purchasing the company’s new phone plan or preordering its gold smartphone.
“It’s not entirely impossible,” Dai said of the August timeline. “But even from that, again, I think the timeline is kind of rushed. At least their website needs to work. I don’t think this particular organization has a very clean record of delivering stuff on time and meeting the standards and keeping promises.”
Trump family business raises ethics questions
Trump Jr. noted Monday that his father is not involved with the new Trump Organization venture, underscoring that he and his brother Eric Trump are running the company. The ever-expanding business portfolio of the Trump family during President Trump’s second term has repeatedly raised concerns about how he could benefit from his time in office.
Trump and his sons launched a cryptocurrency company, World Liberty Financial, last fall, which has since unveiled a stablecoin. The digital token was used last month to complete a high-profile $2 billion transaction between an Emirati firm and the crypto exchange Binance.
Trump has earned about $57 million from World Liberty Financial, according to a financial disclosure released Friday.
Trump has also faced scrutiny over the meme coin he launched shortly before his inauguration. He held a dinner with the top investors in the $TRUMP token in May, who spent millions of dollars to secure spots at the exclusive event.
Trump Media & Technology Group, the parent company of Trump’s Truth Social platform, has also gotten in on the crypto craze, raising $2.5 billion to create a bitcoin reserve and taking steps toward launching a series of crypto-related assets.
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