This is unrealistic. A 100% import tax on Chinese electronics would result in a 100% import tax on American pork, for example, going into China.

It would take years for Apple to get the supply chain necessary to make their products in America. A better strategy for Apple would just be to wait for a more friendly administration, or use political leverage and lobbying money to get the law repealed.

There is no scenario where tariffs would result in iPhones being built in America.

You are right, it is probably too late now. But tariffs might have prevented the supply chain from moving or being established in China in the first place if they had been in place ~20 years ago. And while unrealistic, there might be a scenario now that would work: some slowly escalating tariff over a decade that would allow time to deal with the supply chain issues.

Not necessarily - it would likely just be passed along to the consumer, so that iPhones in America would cost double what they do in China. There are more consumers in China than in America, so if Apple's forced to choose between manufacturing in America and getting taxed for every unit they sell in China vs. manufacturing in China and getting taxed for every unit they sell in America, they'd pick the latter. American iPhone buyers tend to be relatively price-insensitive anyway.

Are there really a lot more consumers that can afford an iPhone in China?

I never quite understood how imposing import taxes/tariffs is seen as being good for your own population / bad for manufacturer.

To my extremely simplistic view:

* If I live in country A

* My government imposes taxes/tariffs on goods imported from country B

= MY cost to purchase said things I want just went up.

Long term, this may or may not have impact on the manufacturer/Country B.

Immediate term, my life sucks a bit more because of my government.

How/Why are masses so enthusiastically responding to all the populist promises (in USA right now, but around the world in general) to raise taxes on imports (which still goes in the category of "taxes I pay on things I want to buy), when they respond so negatively on raising taxes on anything else??

The idea is that because the manufacturer's costs also go up, there's no longer any reason for them to manufacture abroad, and the same goods are manufactured in the country instead. So while their prices are higher, the workers that make them are also paid more (and, perhaps more importantly, are paid at all, on account of having a job). And furthermore, that money remains in the economy of the country imposing the tariff. Ideally, the end result is that more people overall can afford that iPhone, for example, even if the sticker price is higher.

To what extent this works in practice is another matter. But I would posit that the notion that's common nowadays that tariffs are always bad is just as simplistic as wrong as the notion that tariffs can fix all problems. It all boils down to the specific numbers.

> To my extremely simplistic view: * If I live in country A * My government imposes taxes/tariffs on goods imported from country B = MY cost to purchase said things I want just went up.

Please correct me if I my own simplistic view is incorrect, but is that not the reason why foreign product costs are so high in Australia as well?