Panos for Progress: Thoughts and Selections

  It is possible. It'll take over a decade, and in today's values, it'll likely cost about $3,500 for a basic model  or about three times the current iPhone -Made-in-China price, as explained below. 1. In a recent interview, Apple's CEO Tim Cook said that manufacturing in China has nothing to do with cheap labor. That ended ten years ago. He stressed the tooling engineering expertise needed for such a powerful and miniature device. If I called for a meeting of suitable tooling engineers in the US, he said, I'd fill up a room. If I did the same in China, I'd fill up a stadium. 2. WSJ's Nicole Nguyen explained more:  Let’s talk assembly first…putting together the different components of the iPhone. This is very complex. Electronics manufacturing at scale has been perfected in China over a generation. The U.S. would need hundreds of thousands of skilled workers it doesn’t have, not to mention the facilities. Analysts say it would take many billions of dollars...

  The F-150 is the top selling vehicle in the US, with 732,139 units sold in 2024. Paul Krugman: Trump has slapped high tariffs on Canadian aluminum, which is cheap because smelting uses lots of electricity, and Canada has abundant hydropower. Yet Trump somehow thinks Canada is exploiting us by offering us a key industrial input at a good price.” WSJ: Ford’s F-150 trucks, one of the company’s biggest profit generators, are among the most aluminum-intensive vehicles on the market. The company a decade ago converted the trucks to a mostly aluminum exterior, including the hood, doors and truck bed, to save weight and enhance fuel efficiency.