President Donald Trump wasn’t the first president to push for iPhone production to move to America.
The US president was having dinner with the CEO of Apple when he turned to the tech giant’s top executive and asked him what it would take for Apple to move the manufacturing of the iPhone from China to the United States. According to the New York Times, Apple’s CEO said, „Those jobs aren’t coming back.“ The newspaper added that „Made in the U.S.A. is no longer a viable option for most Apple products.“
This certainly sounds like a scenario that could have taken place just this week as President Donald Trump has continued to suggest to Apple CEO Tim Cook that the iPhone be produced in US factories. But the aforementioned exchange between the US president and Apple’s CEO actually took place in 2011. The president was Democrat Barack Obama and the Apple CEO Obama was talking to was the late Steve Jobs.
The Times printed a story from an Apple executive that illustrates the flexibility and speed of Chinese assembly line workers that can’t be matched in the States. The story takes place after Apple decided on a design improvement for the iPhone’s display that forced a change in the manufacturing process of the device at the factory where the smartphone was being assembled.
As the story goes, a foreman at the Chinese manufacturing facility woke up 8,000 workers in the factory’s dormitories. Each assembly line worker was given a biscuit and a cup of tea and guided to a workstation. Within 30 minutes, a 12-hour shift started that had these workers placing glass displays into beveled frames.
