6.17.25
The Trump family's latest venture, an "America first" mobile network and self-branded phone will "eventually" be built in the U.S., leaving questions about where the new "T1" phone will be manufactured ahead of its launch later this year. In an interview on Monday, Eric Trump, vice president of the Trump Organization, said that it was possible for the phones to be built in the U.S., and that "eventually all the phones will be built in the United States." In the announcement, the Trump Organization described the T1 phone as "proudly designed and built in the United States." However, this claim has already been met with scrutiny from tech and supply chain experts, who doubt whether a phone could be domestically manufactured in this timeframe or at the advertised price point. Nilay Patel, co-founder of technology news website The Verge, told CNBC: "I don't think they're going to sell a phone that has anything to do with the United States on any kind of timeline that makes sense." He added that the only phone which could be sold for $499 by September would be "undoubtedly a rebranded Chinese Android phone."
"Barring miracles, building a smartphone entirely in the U.S. by September is all but impossible," Tinglong Dai, professor at the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School, told Newsweek. "The U.S. doesn't currently have the supply chain to support that. We don't make key components like screens, memory chips, or camera modules here at scale," he added. "Even final assembly would be a stretch without significant lead time and preparation." Tinglong Dai, professor at the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School, told Newsweek: "If the claim is 'Made in USA,' the [Federal Trade Commission] has a very strict standard: all or virtually all parts and processing must be domestic." "That rules out any meaningful reliance on foreign suppliers, which makes the claim unrealistic under current conditions," he added. "The Trump Organization's 'built in America' language isn't an official designation, so that may be the direction they're taking."