Apple explores moving 15-30% of production capacity from China
This might be the most damaging of all announcements made thus far.<p>Companies have known they probably have relied a little bit too much on &#x27;one country&#x27; thus far, and that there could be ramifications, and this &#x27;mini trade war&#x27; is basically the red flag which caused them to &#x27;do something&#x27;.<p>Apple is a monster, representing alone a good chunk of the trade.<p>But it isn&#x27;t this specific move, it&#x27;s the knock-on effects and the permanency of it the changes that will be the real damage.<p>Apple is an industry leader, and this will cause everyone to think about their situation in the same way.<p>Even if the &#x27;trade war&#x27; ended today with happy smiles, companies will still look into this, because all of this could happen again, and it&#x27;s probably the right thing to do anyhow in their eyes.<p>Once a portion of manufacturing leaves, it&#x27;s never coming back, and as other sources become more reliant and competitive and other companies see leaders planting their flags elsewhere, there will be follow-on and the genie will not be put back in the bottle.<p>I think this year is a major change point for China and the world, as the 1990&#x27;s were fast but quiet, the 2000&#x27;s it came to everyone&#x27;s attention, the 2010&#x27;s concerns started to rise outside the border, jingoism, &#x27;head of state for life&#x27; and enough critical mass of concerned voices lead by Mr. Big in the Presidency (rational acting or not, it&#x27;s made a mark).<p>Combined with a natural slowdown which would have occurred regardless.<p>This is a new chapter.