Submission + - WSJ: Why Moving Apple Phone Factories to USA Misses the Point (wsj.com)
retroworks writes: Greg Ip's column does a lot to explain how "MAGA" and Bernie miss the point of globalization when they focus on assembly line jobs. Even if the trade wars brought iPhone production back to the USA, the context of value production shows losses would trump whatever gains protectionism promised.
"Apple’s iPhone is one of the most successful consumer products in history, and one of the most globalized. Its camera is Japanese, its memory chips South Korean, its power management chip British, its wireless circuits Taiwanese, its user-interface processor Dutch and the radio-frequency transceiver American, according to a study of the value added in smartphones by Jason Dedrick of Syracuse University and Kenneth Kraemer of the University of California at Irvine. The factory workers who assemble iPhones in China contribute just 1% of the finished product’s value. Apple’s shareholders and employees, who are predominantly American, capture 42%."
"Apple’s iPhone is one of the most successful consumer products in history, and one of the most globalized. Its camera is Japanese, its memory chips South Korean, its power management chip British, its wireless circuits Taiwanese, its user-interface processor Dutch and the radio-frequency transceiver American, according to a study of the value added in smartphones by Jason Dedrick of Syracuse University and Kenneth Kraemer of the University of California at Irvine. The factory workers who assemble iPhones in China contribute just 1% of the finished product’s value. Apple’s shareholders and employees, who are predominantly American, capture 42%."
