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I'm curios in what state the US' manufacturing (chips, displays or otherwise) capabilities would be had Apple invested that USD $250-odd billion (as alleged on that "secret deal" article) in the US rather than in China. I'm skeptical it would've ever reached the low cost (but high-quality) of labor they get in China but maybe they would offset that with something else?

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Neither chip or display manufacturing is driven by labor cost. China has, or had, no advantage here whatsoever -- other than the gov't subsidies and Apple, a large American investor and guaranteed buyer/customer.

The display industry was previously dominated by Japan; then is by South Korea. Both countries are close US allies -- or America's "lapdogs" if you prefer. The mobile OLED as we know today is mostly Samsung's achievement -- they were the first to successfully develop, commercialize and mass-produce with large market share, both as producer (95+%) and consumer (95+%) until a few years ago.

Chip manufacturing is definitely driven by labor costs. Labor is still a major component of opex and capitalized labor construction costs are a large portion of capex.

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