has been linked to the trade war, but the iPhone maker has plenty of additional reasons to explore a move to other countries, as do many other companies.
"Most of the reasons everyone went to China in the first place aren't there any more," Arntzen told Business Insider. For US companies, there were language and time zone differences, he said. The huge geographic distance between the two countries often meant long supply lines between companies' manufacturing facilities and their component makers. That in turn also often meant that they needed long lead times to start manufacturing products to make sure the goods could get to market by particular dates, he said.
But China no longer offers many of those advantages, Arntzen and other supply-chain experts said. Although the country still has large pools of untapped labor in its interior, the labor market is relatively tight in the coastal areas that are home to much of its manufacturing base, he said. Worker pay has been rising and is now on par with Taiwan and other countries.