Chinese shipments of Apple Inc.’s iPhones and other mobile devices to the United States plunged to their lowest levels since 2011 in April, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday, illustrating the severe disruption caused by ongoing US-China trade tensions. According to detailed customs data, smartphone exports fell sharply by 72% to just under $700 million last month, significantly outpacing the overall 21% drop in Chinese shipments to the US.
This dramatic decline underscores how the Trump administration’s tariff campaign—marked by levies as high as 145% on certain Chinese goods—has choked off the flow of high-value electronics between the world’s two largest economies. The tariffs have disrupted global tech supply chains and forced the diversion of Chinese electronics exports to other markets.
Investors remain concerned about a prolonged trade war that could erode the US-China bilateral trade, which hit $690 billion in 2024, potentially decimating industries and increasing costs for consumers. The tensions continue to simmer, with Beijing recently accusing the Trump administration of undermining trade talks in Geneva by imposing sanctions on Huawei Technologies Co.’s AI chip exports.
The data reveals a broader trend affecting major US imports from China. Last year, smartphones, laptops, and lithium-ion batteries were the top US imports, while liquid petroleum gas, oil, soybeans, gas turbines, and semiconductor manufacturing machines were among the most valuable US exports to China.
Meanwhile, China’s exports of phone components to India—the site of Apple’s largest iPhone production facility outside China—have roughly quadrupled over the past year. This shift signals Apple’s ongoing strategy to relocate manufacturing outside of China, although recent criticism from the Trump administration has called on Apple to bring production back to the US. Despite such calls, assembling iPhones in the US remains unlikely in the near term.
