US President Donald Trump has urged companies, including Apple, to shift their production to the United States. However, critics and experts have highlighted the challenges of large-scale manufacturing in the US. Amid the ongoing debate on social media, an old video featuring Apple CEO Tim Cook has resurfaced in which he explains why the tech giant continues to produce its products in China despite no relief in labour costs. In the video, Cook says that China was not Apple’s preferred country due to its low labour costs. He emphasised that several top tech companies manufacture their products in China because of their skills. “The popular conception is that companies come to China because of low labour costs. I'm not sure what part of China they go to, but the truth is China stopped being the low labour-cost country years ago," he says. “The products we require need advanced tooling and the precision that you have to have in tooling and working with materials that we do are state-of-the-art. Tooling skill in China is very deep," Cook adds. He also drew comparisons between manufacturing in the US and China. “In the US, you could have a meeting of tooling engineers, and I'm not sure we could fill the room.” In China, however, “you could fill multiple football fields.. Hence, the vocational expertise in China is very deep,” he says. Watch here: Tim Cook breaks down why Apple builds in China and why the U.S. isn’t ready to replace it yet. pic.twitter.com/OiEpyIEZlN — Nigel D'Souza (@Nigel__DSouza) April 11, 2025 Several social media users agreed with Cook. "True, it’s about scale, speed, and precision. China has a massive pool of highly skilled tooling and manufacturing engineers," a user wrote. "This is true. I spoke to my chinease colleagues , employee cost is very high there and at par with advanced nations," another user commented. "It is true for India too. US comes to India for services not because of we are cheap. Because we have the expertise. The difference Chinese cities became world-class. Our city infrastructure deteriorated," a third user chimed in.
