What would it cost Apple to make iPhones in the U.S.?

And the fact that the American Apple executive admires it with the terms of flexibility and such.

China is a dictatorship which provides capitalists slave like workforce. The capitalists get their slaves and can hypocritically point fingers at China and how bad communism is, and the corrupt Chinese government gets his money. Everybody is happy (except the victims of that cynical farce). That's shows the power of PR and persuasion. I remember 15 years ago people still protesting against China at its terrible working conditions in the west, or against the treatment of Tibet by the Chinese government. Who questions that today ? nobody, not even lefties.

Of course Apple could build the iPhone in the west and sell it at the exact same price. It just wouldn't be as profitable as it is and would require significant investments on infrastructure and factories but the "market" wants high return on investment, not just profitability. Worker's rights arbitrage is how corporations like Apple, any textile manufacturer or hardware manufacturer got so rich.

Anybody who thinks that scheme made things cheaper needs to look at the insane debts most western countries are running. That's the hidden cost of all that system. That high debt is a sign the quality of life will go down in the west in the foreseeable future.

Who in the US can authoritatively certify Chinese labor?

You certify it just like anything else that is hard to inspect: require companies to sign binding documents that certify their goods as in compliance with the law, and fine them when proof is found this is not the case. It doesn't get rid of violations, but it does cut them down a lot.

And what about the majority of iPhones which are not for sale in the USA?

Just because one country jumps off a bridge, everyone else should follow suit? I find this kind of reasoning neither here nor there.

what keeps Apple from leaving the USA to escape the "no-slave law"

Nothing except profit. Why walk away from the most profitable markets you have, even if due to new legislation the profits are a little less obscene than they used to be?

how can they compete against a foreign company which can use "slaves?"

Because foreign companies wouldn't be able to use slaves if they want to sell their goods in the US or EU.

how do you combat the black market in the USA for these "slave phones?

There's already an illegal cheap phone circuit, for stolen phones. Besides, it might be a good thing if crime rings start pushing phones on people instead of pushing drugs. It would also be amusing if people would steal phones to fence them for money to buy illegal phones.

You can keep finding nits to pick, but ... I see point nor reason to do so.

Labour laws per se do not violate mfn or nt, so long as the labour laws apply domestically as well as to imports (since trade wars are essentially about import tariffs).

The primary reason we do not apply labour law to the producers of imports is because labour is poorly organized, under funded, and lacks political will and/or forethought.

The sanctions were are digression from international norms meant to coerce an equally disruptive violation of international laws - the covert production of highly enriched uranium and the illegal development of nuclear weapons.

The implementation of trade restrictions on Chinese goods would probably start a trade war, and another Cold War seems to me to be a plausible outcome. I agree with your conclusion on that point.

That's his qualification to be sure. However, he's running on a platform where he wouldn't afford others the opportunity to do the same.

> I'm sure he will change and be more presidential after elected.

They always do.

I'm hearing actual tax rate in real life is not that high, because of all loopholes used by the corporations.

The thought exercise of in-sourcing everything that ever contributed to anything that eventually goes into a phone helps to point out how the idea of disentangling ourselves from the global market is absurd.