The golden Trump Phone is almost certainly not made in the US

Not content with a real estate empire and the presidency of the United States, the Trump family wades in telephone wars as if it was in 2011 with a brilliant gold monstrosity called T1, whose marketing is based on the narrowest idea of ​​patriotism. Beyond the immediate question – why that, like, at all? -T1 invites a question that may be easier to question: how can a modern smartphone claim to be Made in the United States?

Over the past 40 years, America has directed an effort of massive globalization which allows companies to choose where they develop and build equipment that finds the United States. The best chips to run your phone are built in Taiwan – regardless of the phone manufacturer. The best phones are built in China, India or Vietnam. The screens are often produced in Korea. The glass is actually made in America. The sand which will eventually become the silicon waffles chips comes here too. But most phones, and practically all smartphones found in America, are world -scale devices. An American gold phone All-American is about as fantastic as the promise of the big and beautiful Bill to make all the Americans rich.

The phone has reasonable specifications for the price of $ 499. There is a 6.8 -inch Amoled screen with a punch hole for the 16 Mp front camera, 12 GB of RAM, 256 GB of storage. Its background of cameras includes a main camera of 50 Mp, a 2MP depth sensor and a 2MP macro lens. The processor is notably lacking in the list of specifications. It may be a typo, or maybe almost all smartphones processors are made abroad.

Several analysts have suggested that Trump T1 is actually a 7 Reskned RevVL. This is an Android phone of $ 200 currently offered by T-Mobile in the United States and manufactured by WingTech, a Chinese (partially) belonging to the state-owned telephone manufacturer and a semiconductor manufacturer. However, the specifications and the external appearance align better with the € 180 (also around $ 200) Coolpad X100, which is mentioned as a “related telephone” in T1 in the smartphone database Gsmarena. Similarly, this phone has a 6.8 -inch Amoled screen, 256 GB of internal storage and up to 12 GB of RAM, but its cameras are a significantly higher resolution and it has a flash integrated into its camera module. He, like Revvl 7, is made in China by a Chinese company.

Don Jr and Eric Trump did not say that if the T1 was a reskin of Revvl 7 – or any other existing phone elsewhere – instead, would finally insist it in the United States. (Note that the word “possibly”. He does a lot of work.) The Trump brothers have chosen their words like the lawyers who look, probably because the made in America claim that they are not only marketing, it is enforceable by the Federal Trade Commission. You can’t just slap it on a shabby Chinese phone and call it one day.

“The FTC has in fact very strict regulations on how you label the products and the country of origin,” said Todd Weaver, CEO and founder of Purism. Purism is an American company that produces its own operating system to compete with iOS and Android and is the only company in the United States which can really use any part of the “Made in America” ​​claim for its phones. In our call, he looked a little irritated by the statements of the T1, but was impatient to explain how labeling works.

“I do not make this statement and I make all electronics in the United States,” said Weaver. The purism had to go with a non -telephone processor for the Liberty phone because no company based in America makes (yet) the phone processors. Even with a non -standard chip, the purism processor comes from the manufacture of its supplier in South Korea. He also found financially difficult to get a chassis in the United States. An unskilled statement in America would mean that a phone was not only assembled here, but each part of the device was also manufactured here. It is an essentially impossible task for phone manufacturers. This is why Purism’s phone has rather the label in America Electronics. Weaver could get a lot, but not all the parts made in the United States.

Although it is certainly theoretically possible that the Trump brothers can take all the riches they have raised since their father returned to the oval office to force brute a more American phone, that does not happen soon. The Trump T1, which according to them, will be sold in September, cannot transport this label, at least not legally. (If the current FTC would continue the president’s sons for having distorted the T1 is another story.) We have contacted the FTC for comments and with regard to the publication, we have not heard.

So what about other pro-American manufacturing labels? The Trump brothers have suggested that the phones will be assembled here – even if the Revvl 7 (or Coolpad X100) is not currently. These labels are also governed by the FTC and they are not easy to move. A simple “screwdriver” operation (importing almost entirely foreign pieces and adapting them to the United States) is even provided by the FTC as A simple example consumer deception.

This is a lesson that we have all learned when Apple promised to start building computers at the national level. In 2019, he announced a large factory in Texas under pressure from the Trump administration to provide more manufacturing jobs in America. But even if people put screws in Mac Pros in the United States, they cannot wear the “Assembly in America” ​​label. Instead, they are “designed in America” ​​and a “product of Thailand” with “final assembly in America”. It is a global device.

Electronics are global devices and no quantity of gold domination or deceptive complaints from the sons of American presidents can change this. THE Best estimates Manufacturing experts say it will be half a decennia, minimum, before Apple or Samsung can build phones in the United States.

Weaver has already thought about the Trump brothers’ declaration for saying that its golden T1 is made in America and noted that someone (Even you, dear reader) could do the same.

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