Donald Trump's iPhone lookalike T1 Phone may not come with ‘Made in America' label: Report
Last week, United States President Donald Trump launched a new smartphone called the T1 Phone. The Trump Organization describes the new phone as 'a sleek, gold smartphone, engineered for performance and proudly designed and built in the United States.'
Now, a recent report by the Financial Times suggests that it will be hard for the Trump T1 phone to bear the 'Made in America' tag. In a statement to the publication, a Trump Mobile spokesperson said that the $499 T1 Phone is manufactured in 'Alabama, California and Florida'. However, they did not offer any details about the production partners or how they plan to source components made in the US. Moreover, there are no details about the manufacturing facilities where the T1 phone will be made.
According to Todd Weaver, CEO of Purism, it is hard to make a smartphone with the specifications Trump Mobile has promised. 'Unless the Trump family secretly built out a secure, onshore or nearshore fabrication operation over years of work without anyone noticing, it's simply not possible to deliver what they're promising', he added.
Purism's Librem 5 is the only phone in the world that carries the Made in America label. But since the company focuses on US manufacturing, its products are unable to compete with big smartphone manufacturers like Samsung or Apple when it comes to software or hardware specifications.
If we take a look at the specifications of the T1 Phone, it resembles smartphones from existing Chinese manufacturers like Vivo and Umidigi, which means the T1 Phone may be a rebranded version of a budget Chinese phone from a fairly less popular brand. Also, according to the Federal Trade Commission's guidelines, to get a 'Made in the USA' label, the T1 Phone will require almost all or virtually all of its components to be made in the country.
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