They Mac the overpriced Mac Pro in the USA, so they could make other equally overpriced Macs in the US as well. It all depends on how things pan out politically. But unless China makes concessions that please the President, Apple may be forced into using more expensive US labor to create their products. Even so, it would make more sense to build them in North Dakota, Oregon, or another state with lower overhead. California is no place to manufacture anything and is almost too expensive a state for the average person to live.
It's not labor costs that are keeping Apple's electronics manufacturing in China, it's supply chain, elasticity, and having the right talent mix. The root cause of the problem is IMHO the US education system, not cheap Chinese labor. In fact, China is no longer "cheap labor market" compared to other Asian countries. The US education system places excessive emphasis on institutionalized educational elitism that favors the wealthy, preserves the privileged class, and offers few opportunities for upward class mobility. The lack of a coordinated, pragmatic, and comprehensive vocational educational system in the US, one which focuses on the attainment of needed hard skills that power modern manufacturing and product development operations, is what is holding back the large scale creation of US manufacturing jobs, not so-called cheap labor.
Maybe Apple will dedicate this recently acquired manufacturing space for vocational training and proof of concept prototypes of modern manufacturing methods and technologies. Imagine Apple creating its own specialized manufacturing workforce to not only help them build the products they intend to deliver to the market, but to build the specialized hardware, software, and machinery that will be used to manufacture future Apple products. It would be very interesting to see Apple take charge of creating the trained manufacturing workforce that it needs to be successful, in much the same way that the US military takes charge of training its own personnel to operate and maintain the sophisticated weapon systems it relies upon for modern warfare. The US vocational education system is a miserable failure, but rather than complaining about it or moving to countries that have created the necessary workforce, Apple can take charge and create its own workforce - wherever it is needed. Welcome to Apple Manufacturing University?
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Maybe Apple will dedicate this recently acquired manufacturing space for vocational training and proof of concept prototypes of modern manufacturing methods and technologies. Imagine Apple creating its own specialized manufacturing workforce to not only help them build the products they intend to deliver to the market, but to build the specialized hardware, software, and machinery that will be used to manufacture future Apple products. It would be very interesting to see Apple take charge of creating the trained manufacturing workforce that it needs to be successful, in much the same way that the US military takes charge of training its own personnel to operate and maintain the sophisticated weapon systems it relies upon for modern warfare. The US vocational education system is a miserable failure, but rather than complaining about it or moving to countries that have created the necessary workforce, Apple can take charge and create its own workforce - wherever it is needed. Welcome to Apple Manufacturing University?