The Question $100 Poses to Us
Have you ever thought about this? In September 2025, when Tim Cook announced the new price for the iPhone 17 Pro, it was exactly $100 higher than before. Some might have thought, “Well, the camera got better, so it makes sense,” while others might have shrugged it off as “Apple being Apple again.”
But that $100 was not just a number. Behind it loomed the massive shadows of Washington D.C. and Beijing. Unpredictable tariff bombs, retaliatory measures, and the agony of a giant corporation trying to survive were all embedded in that $100.
Today’s story isn’t about the new iPhone’s performance. Instead, using this small key of $100, we will trace the grand story of why the colossal empire called “Apple-China,” which has driven the world for the past 20 years, is shaking—and who ultimately pays the cost of that fracture.
Chapter 1: The Promise of the Golden Age – How Apple Won China’s Heart
The story goes back to the early 2000s, when Steve Jobs amazed the world with the iPod. He faced a daunting challenge: “How do we produce tens of millions of these with perfect quality?” The answer lay across the Pacific, in China, which was emerging as the “world’s factory.”
People often credit Apple’s success to “cheap labor,” but that’s only half the story. The real treasures Apple gained in China were three things money can’t buy: speed, scale, and flexibility.
There’s a symbolic anecdote. One night, Apple urgently needed to change the screen design of a prototype. In a US factory, this would have taken weeks, but in Shenzhen, China, it was done in just a few hours. The factory manager woke up 8,000 engineers sleeping in dormitories, who, after receiving tea and biscuits, immediately got to work. Within just four days, a system was perfectly set up to produce 10,000 iPhones per day. This was the “Shenzhen miracle” Apple loved.
It wasn’t just about having many people. Around Shenzhen, suppliers capable of making everything from screws to cutting-edge components for the iPhone were intricately networked like a spiderweb. Engineers could turn ideas into prototypes within hours—this ecosystem was the secret behind Apple’s innovation.
The Chinese government valued this partnership highly. They offered generous tax breaks, cheap factory land, and millions of workers. In return, China gained countless jobs, advanced technology, and the reputation as the “world’s top manufacturing country.” While Apple’s product designs remained in the US, its heart and limbs were deeply rooted in China, making them indispensable to each other.
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Chapter 2: The Storm Begins – “A Quarterly Bill Worth 1 Trillion Won”
Nearly two decades of peaceful times were swept into turmoil when Trump returned to the White House in 2025. The second Trump administration began wielding tariffs as a weapon.
Apple’s lifeline was squeezed by a 10% tariff on all Chinese products under the name of “fentanyl-related tariffs.” Within a month, it jumped to 20%, followed by retaliatory tariffs, soaring at one point to 145%—pure chaos.
This was not a predictable tax but a ticking time bomb with an unknown explosion date. Planning stably in such an environment was nearly impossible. Apple’s problem was not just a “20% cost increase,” but a far scarier monster called “unmanageable uncertainty.”
Eventually, this chaos began to show up as concrete numbers on Apple’s financial statements. Tim Cook estimated tariff costs of $800 million (about 1 trillion won) in Q3 2025 and $1.1 billion (about 1.4 trillion won) in Q4. Over a trillion won was disappearing unexpectedly every quarter.
To make matters worse, tariffs pushed up US consumer prices, thinning wallets. Apple faced a double whammy: rising product costs and customers with less spending power. The era of peace ended, and the fight for survival began.
Chapter 3: The Empire’s Counterattack – A Massive Shield and a Desperate Escape
Facing a quarterly bomb exceeding 1 trillion won, Apple did not stand still. Price hikes were the last card. Before playing it, Apple mobilized all its imperial power to avoid crisis.
First, they accelerated the ‘China Plus One’ strategy. Supply chain diversification, already underway, became a matter of survival. Investments in India and Vietnam surged. Apple set an ambitious goal to produce 25% of iPhones in India. But this was like turning a massive tanker—slow and costly. India lacked the dense parts supply chain and skilled technicians like Shenzhen.
Second, they pulled out the most dramatic ‘political shield.’ When President Trump criticized, “Why go to India? Build factories in the US!” Apple announced a massive $600 billion (about 780 trillion won) investment plan in the US. Tim Cook personally visited the White House to explain. Many analysts see this astronomical sum less as factory construction and more as the most expensive lobbying effort in history to avoid tariffs. It was Apple’s response to Trump’s promise: “Companies investing in the US will be exempt from tariffs.”
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While physically relocating factories and building political shields with huge sums, the bleeding didn’t stop. Ultimately, Apple was forced to touch its last card: price.
Chapter 4: Calculated Cracks – The Clever Strategy Hidden in the Price Tag
Finally, on September 9, 2025, the fateful day arrived. All eyes were on the iPhone 17’s price. The results were surprising (256GB model):
- iPhone 17 (base): $799 (unchanged)
- iPhone Air (new): $999
- iPhone 17 Pro: $1,099 ($100 increase)
- iPhone 17 Pro Max: $1,199 (unchanged)
This price list was a strategic document reflecting Apple’s dilemma and cleverness.
First, they protected the largest territory—the mass market. By freezing the price of the main model iPhone 17, Apple showed its determination to protect the largest consumer base and maintain market share. This meant absorbing huge costs themselves.
Second, they executed a ‘precision strike’ to cover losses. The $100 increase on the iPhone 17 Pro targeted a clear group: prosumers who are less price-sensitive and want the best technology. Instead of saying “price goes up due to tariffs,” Apple cleverly said, “We doubled the storage to offer more value.”
Ultimately, this pricing policy shows Apple deliberately segmenting its customers. The mass market acts as a “breakwater” protecting against price hikes, while the high-end market serves as a “buffer” absorbing tariff shocks. This was the first visible “crack” Apple’s empire made to adapt to a new era.
Chapter 5: The Paradox of Escape – So Why Can’t Apple Leave China?
Here we return to the fundamental question. If it’s so hard, why not just move all factories? Why can’t Apple leave China?
The answer is simple: it’s “almost impossible” for now. The reason lies beyond mere “assembly.”
We say iPhones are “assembled” in China, but that’s only part of the process. The real core is the ecosystem of hundreds of suppliers making the iPhone’s components. The best example of this paradox is China’s display company, BOE.
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After years of effort, BOE has become a key partner supplying the iPhone’s “face,” the OLED display. China is no longer just assembling iPhones but has become a technology partner supplying the most expensive core components.
Here lies the “paradox of escape.” While Apple moves assembly plants (the body) to India, dependence on core component suppliers like BOE (the brain and heart) deepens. “De-China-ization” is difficult not only because of factory relocation costs but because it means replicating the world’s most sophisticated and efficient supply chain ecosystem built over 20 years in China elsewhere. This cannot be done overnight.
Conclusion: A New Era, New Conditions for the Empire
Our journey, starting from the small clue of $100, has passed through the massive storm of Apple and China’s 20-year alliance and the US-China trade war.
iPhone 17’s pricing strategy may be Apple’s clever short-term success. But it also marks a historic moment signaling the end of the era of globalization—moving to the most efficient place regardless of borders—and the start of a new era where geopolitical costs are directly charged to our wallets.
Apple faces three harsh paths:
- Keep absorbing costs: sacrificing enormous profitability.
- Raise prices across the board: risking losing many customers.
- Accelerate complete de-China-ization: enduring iPhone price surges and years of supply chain chaos.
Whichever path is chosen, the golden age of the past is unlikely to return. The $100 on the iPhone 17 sends a clear message: the era of cheap, innovative products we enjoyed might have been a gift of a specific era of borderless globalization.
The Apple empire will not collapse. But the way it is sustained must fundamentally change. The iPhone 17 is a small but meaningful signal announcing the painful beginning of that change. And we are all witnesses and participants in that change.
