Eric Trump Says the Trump Mobile Phones Will Be Made in America ... Eventually

Over the course of Donald Trump's long career in the limelight, he's been known for a couple of things. One is his ability to market a product based only on his name, and another, especially since he got into politics, is his belief that more things should be made in America.

Naturally, then, following the news that Trump's family is launching a line of mobile phones that are (naturally) gold plated, many wanted to know where those phones are being manufactured. Here's what we know.

The Trump phone, which is known as the T1, will eventually be made in America. The phone is set to launch later this year, though, and we aren't exactly sure where it will be manufactured initially.

In an interview on June 16, Eric Trump, the vice president of the Trump Organization, said that "eventually all the phones will be built in the United States." He didn't offer a timetable, though, or any details on how they would accomplish that goal.

He also didn't make it clear where the phones are being made now, although most cell phones are manufactured in Asia at the moment.

This is at least a little ironic given Trump's increasing emphasis on making consumer goods in America. As the country has become more reliant on trade, Trump has suggested that he believes American manufacturing should be as self-reliant as possible. Apparently, that rule doesn't matter to Trump's own company.

Nilay Patel, the co-founder of the tech website The Verge, told CNBC, "I don't think they're going to sell a phone that has anything to do with the United States on any kind of timeline that makes sense."

The phone, which is going to retail for $499, is almost "undoubtedly a rebranded Chinese Android phone," according to Nilay. The mobile service itself will cost $47.45, in commemoration of Trump's role as the 45th and 47th president.

"Barring miracles, building a smartphone entirely in the U.S. by September is all but impossible," Tinglong Dai, professor at the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School, explained to Newsweek.

"The U.S. doesn't currently have the supply chain to support that. We don't make key components like screens, memory chips, or camera modules here at scale," he continued. "Even final assembly would be a stretch without significant lead time and preparation."

Clearly, then, this effort is not going to prioritize American manufacturing. Instead, it seems like the latest in a long line of moneymaking schemes from the Trump family that is designed to take advantage of their patriarch's unique role as the president of the United States.

There was a time when this kind of obvious self-enrichment would have been an enormous scandal. Instead, we learn that the Trump family is planning to sell reskinned Android phones and make a profit off of their sale, and we simply move on to the next news story without thinking too much about it.