To your point - this is all theater. It's stalling for time until this administration is out of office. Site selection alone could take years, but hey, we pledged! It's business-as-usual in Banana Republics and the multinationals have experience working in those environments.

That is what happens when you are part of a cult and sycophants with PhDs in Economics, go unchallenged on CNBC, willing to lose their reputation of years just to indulge a convicted criminal.

Tim Cook already explained multiple times why Apple manufactures in China, it's not about low labor costs anymore (China stopped being the low-cost country years ago). It's about the sophisticated supply chain ecosystem and manufacturing expertise they've built up: https://youtu.be/_ng8xQ-SNGc?t=576

".. China stopped being the low labor cost country many years ago and that low labor costs are NOT why Apple manufactures there..."

Well if Tim Cook says so then it has absolutely nothing to do with low (labor) costs. It must be true that it has nothing to do with cost and he is a totally unbiased and 100% credible source for making such assessments. To his argument's credit, I don't think China has been doing a poor job of manufacturing iStuff.