The “trick” of buying an iPhone in the USA and bringing it to Portugal should end in 2025. Tim Cook will try to alleviate the situation.
Buy one iPhone in Portugal it is not the same as buying an iPhone in the USA.
In September, we set the example of the recent iPhone 16: your most basic model would cost 724 euros in the USA and 989 euros in Portugal – although taxes from each state are still missing from the North American price.
A comparison made by the company shows that buying an iPhone SE in New Orleans (Louisiana) would cost 396.35 euros and in Portugal it would cost 549 euros at the time.
But this very evident difference could be smoothed out, or even end, in 2025.
Donald Trump will be president of the USA again and one of his priorities at an economic level is to apply a tax of at least 60% a products that come from China.
This measure is not a detail: it must affect quite the prices charged by Apple in the USA.
Apple is headquartered in California (USA) but Most of the components for iPhones are manufactured in China.
In other words, the final price of an iPhone should rise (a lot). As already, an iPhone can be 300 euros more expensive in the US than now.
Cook tries
Tim Cook, Apple’s executive director, will still try soften this change. He has a good relationship with Trump and may try to make Apple a exception these new taxes.
In fact, it wouldn’t be the first time: it has already convinced the White House not to apply tariffs to most of the products that Apple sells, justifying that these would increase prices of smartphones, computers and tablets.
Tim Cook has another strategy that he has already started to apply: part of the components have started to be produced in India (Prime Minister Narendra Modi is a friend of Donald Trump) and in Vietnam.
This leaves two more alternative paths for the Apple director. One of them is related to the Mac Pro. It will be launched in 2025 and is entirely assembled in Austin, USA. And Apple will soon open a factory in Arizona.
But Tim Cook should mainly touch on a “weak point” of Trump: patriotism It will warn the future president that taxing Apple could benefit South Korean Samsung in the USA. In other words, it will harm a local company more than a foreign one.
