The Donald Trump crusade to bring manufacturing jobs home to America now extends to Apple Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL).
In a Monday campaign speech at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va., the front-runner in the Republican presidential race promised to force Apple to return long-lost factory jobs to the United States.
Most of Apple's products, including the iPhone, are built in China.
Since launching his campaign in June, Trump has repeated his promise of returning jobs to the United States often, although the usual target is Ford Motor Co. (NYSE: F).
In Ford's case, Trump has vowed to slap a punitive 35% tax on every vehicle Ford would import from Mexico. Trump doesn't like Ford's plans to build two new engine and transmission plants in Mexico, although the company has said no U.S. jobs will be lost.
Although Trump didn't specify how he'd get Apple to move its production to the United States, it's safe to assume the same 35% tariff would apply.
Putting aside the practicality of these proposals for a moment, it's easy to see the appeal to a big slice of the electorate. For decades Americans have watched well-paying, middle-class jobs migrate overseas when U.S. factories close.
The statistics are disheartening. Since 1999, the United States has lost 5 million manufacturing jobs, about half of them to China. The current total of 12.3 million manufacturing jobs is 7.3 million lower than the 1979 peak of 19.6 million.
And Donald Trump has raised hopes, saying he can put things right with these tariffs. "We have to or we're not going to have a country left," he said in his Liberty University speech. "Everyone is ripping us."
It would be great if Trump were right. If slapping tariffs on the imported goods of U.S. companies had any chance of bringing back millions of lost manufacturing jobs, the idea would have broad support.
But Trump's plan won't work. It can't work. And I've got four reasons why...
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"No matter who becomes president, I cannot foresee a scenario where 5 million additional manufacturing jobs ... reappear in the U.S. in the decades ahead," economist David Autor of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology told the Associated Press.
The Bottom Line: Donald Trump's latest target in his quest to return lost manufacturing jobs to the United States is tech giant Apple. Few dispute the merits of regaining well-paying factory jobs, but the reality is that they're not coming back. And Trump's plan to use punitive tariffs to force U.S. corporations to bring jobs home not only would fail, it would do more harm than good.
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About the Author
David Zeiler, Associate Editor for Money Morning at Money Map Press, has been a journalist for more than 35 years, including 18 spent at The Baltimore Sun. He has worked as a writer, editor, and page designer at different times in his career. He's interviewed a number of well-known personalities - ranging from punk rock icon Joey Ramone to Apple Inc. co-founder Steve Wozniak.
Over the course of his journalistic career, Dave has covered many diverse subjects. Since arriving at Money Morning in 2011, he has focused primarily on technology. He's an expert on both Apple and cryptocurrencies. He started writing about Apple for The Sun in the mid-1990s, and had an Apple blog on The Sun's web site from 2007-2009. Dave's been writing about Bitcoin since 2011 - long before most people had even heard of it. He even mined it for a short time.
Dave has a BA in English and Mass Communications from Loyola University Maryland.