Supply Chain 101

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent recently stated, He didn’t understand what Tim Cook meant when Mr. Cook said “it would be difficult to assemble iPhones in the United States because of a skills gap in the United States.”  

Secretary Bessent went on the say: "You don't need a PhD in mechanical engineering to assemble an iPhone," challenging Apple CEO Tim Cook's assertion that the U.S. lacks the necessary skills for domestic iPhone assembly.

Perhaps if Secretary Bessent had ever in his lifetime had any exposure to the manufacturing process he would understand. Or heaven forbid, maybe Secretary Bessent and the brilliant advisory team to President Trump could actually ask Tim Cook what he meant before they started a devasting trade war that has no hope of accomplishing what they think it will. If they had talked to Tim Cook this is what they would have learned:

When Tim Cook says it would be difficult to assemble iPhones in the United States because of a skills gap, he’s mainly referring to a shortage of mid-level manufacturing skills — particularly in areas like:

1. Precision Manufacturing and Tooling

• China has a vast supply of workers skilled in tool and die making, precision machining, and supply chain coordination.
• These roles require technical training, but not necessarily a four-year degree. The U.S. has seen a decline in vocational training programs over the past few decades.

2. Advanced Assembly and Production Line Management

• iPhone assembly isn’t just about low-wage labor — it also requires highly coordinated assembly line expertise, real-time supply chain adjustment, and production agility.
• China has large industrial parks where tens of thousands of workers can be mobilized quickly — something the U.S. lacks at scale.

3. Supply Chain Ecosystem

• Cook has also pointed to the fact that China has developed a complete manufacturing ecosystem, with component suppliers, materials, and engineers all clustered together.
• Even if you trained U.S. workers, the parts would still need to be shipped from Asia, driving up costs and delays.

4. Workforce Size and Flexibility

• In China, Apple can call in thousands of workers overnight to reconfigure production lines — this kind of scalability and flexibility is nearly impossible in the U.S. under current conditions.

In short, the “skills gap” isn’t about coding or design — it's about the manufacturing talent and infrastructure that have been systematically offshored for decades. Cook has argued that rebuilding that infrastructure and workforce in the U.S. would take a long time and massive investment.

It is scary to think that our nation’s economic future is in the hands of a group of advisors who have never made anything in their collective lives. Neither President Trump, Scott Bessent, Howard Lutnick, or Peter Navarro have ever spent anytime in any manufacturing process (unless you consider bad policy as manufacturing).

President Trump is ultimately responsible for the bad advice he chooses to listen to, and apparently he has decided to ignore the advice on the one intelligent advisor he had on his team that does understand manufacturing inside and out, Elon Musk. According to recent reports President Trump, has chosen to listen to Howard Lutnick, Peter Navarro, and Scott Bessent over the brilliant Mr. Musk.