[14]

You do realize how much money Apple makes right? They absolutely have the money to run these capabilities in America. They also have enough money they could do it in a timely manner. What they know would happen is the cost to actually manufacture an iPhone would shoot through the roof and they would be left either making less profit to sell the phone at the same price point it always has been, or they will have to dramatically reduce shareholder return. They don't want to do either of those things obviously because right now new iPhone cost around 1000$ and it is probably close to what the market will bare. So their only option would be reduce shareholder return and I think that is the only thing stopping them from moving home. Simply put they would not make as much profit.

[pwinnski]

Is your argument that their manufacturing costs would increase by less than 30%? Or that you expect Apple to fold as a company?

You state "they absolutely have the money to run these capabilities in America." Apple's published margin on hardware is 30%, so if manufacturing in America increases costs by 30%, Apple no longer makes a profit selling hardware. If manufacturing increases costs by more than 30%, Apple starts losing money selling hardware.

Big numbers are big because Apple is selling many, many, many phones. That also means that adding to the cost of manufacturing by even a small amount per unit immediately chews up a lot of those outrageous profits.

[tooltalk]

Apple buys iPhones wholesale from CMs (contract manufacturer) like Foxconn, Pegatron, etc for only $250-$350 and sells them for around $799-$1000 retail. The cost of labor (ie, final assembly; aka, manufacturing) in iPhone BOM, often born by CM's, is around $10-$12 per device.