On paper, imports of the popular smartphone and other goods from China look like a big loss to the U.S. The president certainly thinks so and has often cited the massive U.S.-China bilateral trade deficit – US$420 billion in 2018 – as a reason to fight his trade war.
When an iPhone X arrives in the U.S., it adds about $370 – its factory cost – to the deficit. All told, iPhones add tens of billions of dollars a year to the U.S. deficit with China, which is the gap between imports and exports. But, thanks to the globe-spanning supply chains that run through China, trade deficits in the modern economy are not always what they seem.