Did you get that quote from Patrick McGee's book "Apple in China"?

Wiki says: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_in_China

    > In the book, McGee says that, under the leadership of Tim Cook, Apple invested $275 billion in China between 2016 and 2021, to manufacture its products in the country (including building factories and supply chains in China, as well as training Chinese workers). McGee compares this to the Marshall Plan, as this is in excess of other corporate spending and, in real terms, was about twice the monetary value of the Marshall Plan.

You fail to understand that Apple investing in China is in their best interest - and then returned back to millions of shareholders. If investing in the USA would be a better ROI, there would be no need for any measures like this to force companies somewhere.

People in favour of tariffs make it seem like the best and wealthiest economy in the world is in a bad shape, and it is completely opposite, while failing to address the inequality issue with the wealth distribution.

Then all this 3x amount would have had no ROI, China would have outdid the US comparatively.

I distinctly remember Apple having produced a video showing off an automated assembly line for PCB production for the original Mac. It's not like they didn't try it.

Probably not much. The US doesn’t have the capacity for high volume manufacturing. We cost too much.

Easy to imagine - phones would be 1.5x more expensive than they are now, from get go. The cheap electronics (and goods in large part) have been hallmark of "quality of life in USA" for decades; I still get iPhone and Lenovo laptops 40% cheaper than family members living in Europe.

However, it seems that Americans are so tired of growing prices that they are getting used to paying them. Just yesterday there was an article that summarized oil price drop 40% from when the war cooled down, but prize at the pump went down only 12%. The big oil explains this that people will buy gas anyways, so why lowering the price? I think we will see the same happening with electronics - Apple breaking news on $500B factory spending in USA is mostly because they believe Apple owners will keep buying Apple regardless of the price. They may be right... will see.

>Apple invested 3x the Marshall Plan into China.

Apple invested 3x that because they got 30x in return from the savings versus US manufacturing.

>Imagine if they'd spent that on the US instead.

Then iPhones would either have to be 10x more exsolve to keep the same profit margins or Apple would be broke trying to compete with Chinese made goods using US manufacturing.