Why not? Foxconn is going robotic. Their new Foxbots are good enough to assemble iPhones. So why not make them nearer to the US market and avoid tariff problems?<p>50,000 employees is small for Foxconn. They have 1,300,000 employees now. (Yes, they really are that big.) They replaced 60,000 workers with robots earlier in 2016.[1] They plan to replace a lot more.<p>[1] <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-36376966" rel="nofollow">http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-36376966</a>
Smart move by both Apple and Foxconn.<p>Having your manufacturing based in one country isn't a good idea in terms of risk management.<p>Natural disasters, shipping delays, or presidential will could shut down production pretty quickly.<p>Trump will be very quick to use this as a point to show he was correct. I'd expect Foxconn to get some very good concessions out of this. SoftBank's Masayoshi continues to amaze me. Instead of talking tough about Trump's local manufacturing bluster, he quickly accepted it and started deal making with this new reality.<p>I'm no political expert but Id' be very surprised if Trump doesn't start picking fights with other governments about manufacturing jobs and tariffs. Companies and supply chains who don't anticipate this are going to be in for a rough 4 years.<p>Bloomberg's SPLC<GO> function is going to get alot more use in the coming days/weeks as people start to map out who is bring jobs back to America and who is standing firm:)
I'm not clear about China/Japanese investment in the USA but doesn't that feel like the US is loosing it's edge and competitiveness. From an uninformed point of view it surely feels like China and Japan are actually in a position of control here more than ever?