Ives: Why we can’t “just make this in the USA”

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick promised over the weekend that President Trump’s tariffs would bring production of things like the Apple iPhone to the US. Wedbush analyst Dan Ives disagrees, saying tariffs on Chinese goods — which could be more than 100% — would be unlikely to force production to US and in the meantime would create a “category 5 price storm for the US consumer” and lots of pain for American tech companies.

“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 US consumers over the last 30 years. It’s the foundation the US tech world is built on and these tariffs are flipping a boat upside down in the ocean with no life rafts telling US tech/auto companies such as Apple, Nvidia, Microsoft, GM, AMD among so many others ‘good luck!’”

He called the tariffs the “biggest debacle ever seen in the markets” and “purely self-inflicted by Trump.”

“It’s very easy to say ‘build in America’ behind a microphone in the Beltway... the reality is so much different it’s almost a scary concept. It takes 4-5 years to build a factory in the US, the US labor force and cost structure goes against the entire concept of the modern supply chain, much of the IP and technology fueling the supply chain is cemented in Asia, and the reality this ‘near-term pain’ would take a decade to even move the needle. If US tech companies are faced with this reality, it will negatively change the tech landscape for decades to come.”