If we saw an infographic of who gets the profits from unit sales, the USA would be much higher.
Absolutely. On the other hand, I think that would also be a difficult graphic to parse correctly. The U.S. is globally the largest iPhone market by far. Therefore, and because U.S. profits from iPhone sales are registered as Apple's U.S. profits, the U.S. would obviously figure prominently on such a chart. That's obviously a very important metric for Apple, but I'm not sure it's that great for anyone else. At the end of the day, every iPhone sold in the U.S. still contributes to the U.S. trade deficit, despite Apple's large U.S. profits.
Even then, because the profits from iPhone sales outside the U.S. are stashed overseas and never transferred back home, the U.S. probably still wouldn't make up such a large part of the profit pie as we'd intuitively think.
All that is kind of off-topic though. I didn't really want to make that last post about how much an iPhone sale does or doesn't benefit the U.S. economy. The point is the extent to which China is involved, and that occurs to a far lesser degree with an iPhone than it does with a Xiaomi device. In a nutshell:
Western consumers in favour of economic fairness and against worker exploitation can still make meaningful choices, without having to become cave dwellers. :wink:
but it doesn't necessarily assuage the concerns of people who are opposed to worker exploitation.
I'd say it's a start...
My main concern with China is related to their practice of currency manipulation. It enables China to sign free trade deals yet still apply what amounts to export subsidies and import tariffs. Fixing that would quickly transfer a few million jobs back to Europe and the U.S. , which in a free and fair market, would never have been relocated in the first place. Worker exploitation is the other issue I'm concerned with. China is #1 when it comes to sacrificing anything and everything in pursuit for higher GDP, including their people's and their customers health/safety, the air we all end up breathing, and lives.
Until China changes those two things, I'll do what I can to channel my consumer dollars elsewhere. I realize I'm just a drop in a bucket, but I'll have at least made an effort to stick to my principles as well as I could. I realize it's far from perfect, but I won't let "perfect" become the enemy of "good".