Trump Mobile Drops “Made in the USA” Pledge Just Days After Launch
Trump Mobile's $499 T1 phone is no longer advertised as made in the United States.
According to the Financial Times, the Trump Organization has removed this phrase from its website and replaced it with vague statements such as “made in the USA” or “designed with American values.”
The change came just a week after the launch event. The delivery information is also different: originally August, the website now says “arriving later this year”.
The company has previously announced Alabama, California, and Florida as manufacturing locations. The phone’s specs have also been scaled back: the screen has been reduced from 6.78 inches to 6.25 inches, and the 12GB of RAM has been dropped.
The withdrawal of both production and configuration commitments stems from technology experts' doubts about the ability to create a competitive smartphone with components manufactured entirely in the United States, something most major companies have not been able to do.
Liberty Mobile is in charge of the service and many questions are raised.
More than 80% of smartphone components are imported from China. Even Apple and Samsung rely heavily on Asian factories. Manufacturing entirely in the United States is a long-term strategy that Trump Mobile seems reluctant to ignore.
The US Federal Trade Commission's “Made in America” standard requires that “all or most” components be produced domestically, which is nearly impossible to achieve with a phone.
Trump has previously criticized Apple for manufacturing iPhones in China and India, threatening to impose a 25% tariff on imported devices. The T1 is seen as a demonstration of the difference he wants to make.
Eric Trump, who co-runs the company with Donald Trump Jr., has also now admitted that the phone will only be “made in the United States in the future.” At the New York event, executives Don Hendrickson, Eric Thomas and Pat O’Brien were introduced as having “hundreds of years” of experience in the mobile industry, but little was known about them.
Trump Mobile also locks customers into a $47.45 monthly plan, a figure that has implications for Donald Trump's 45th term as President.
The mobile service is operated by Liberty Mobile Wireless, a Florida-based virtual network operator (MVNO), which buys capacity from AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon and resells it under its own brand, a practice common to celebrity-backed services like Mint Mobile.
Many questions about T1 design and delivery time
The T1 was originally scheduled to ship in September, but there is no longer a fixed date on the website. The Trump Mobile team explained that the website crashed on launch day due to a large number of pre-orders, but did not disclose specific numbers.
The design of the T1 is almost an exact copy of Vivo and Umidigi – Chinese low-cost Android phone brands. There are no unique hardware highlights or designs revealed.
Even companies that have tried to manufacture phones in the United States have failed to do so on a large scale. Todd Weaver, CEO of Purism, a California-based electronics company, said that making phones in the United States is time-consuming and expensive.
“When I started, I knew we couldn’t produce it right away,” he said. “When we launched our first phone, we flew to China to learn the design and manufacturing process.” Purism now specializes in secure phones with its own operating system, aimed at a narrow audience like government agencies, but in return, they are limited in features and the number of apps.
The mid-range smartphone market is no longer easy to conquer. In 2024, phones priced between $400 and $600 will account for less than 5% of the market, down sharply from 9% in 2019. Even the $599 iPhone 16e, launched in February 2025, will have to work hard to attract budget-conscious users.
There is currently no evidence to prove that the T1 meets the FTC's "Made in America" criteria, which means it must have "all or nearly all" components manufactured in the United States, with almost nothing imported.
Source: https://tintucbitcoin.com/trump-mobile-huy-san-xuat-tai-my/
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