New Delhi: Amid the escalating geopolitical tensions in West Asia and the all-important G7 summit in Canada, US President Donald Trump’s sons, Donald Jr and Eric Trump, found it suitable to announce the launch of Trump Mobile, a new wireless service and smartphone brand, at Trump Tower in New York earlier this week.
The launch took place on June 16, approaching the 10-year anniversary of Donald
Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign announcement.
According to reports in the American media, the ‘T1’ smartphone will be gold-coloured with a 6.8-inch AMOLED display, 120Hz refresh rate, 50MP main camera, 12GB RAM, 256GB expandable storage, a 5000mAh battery, and run on Android 15.
To top it all, it will be “proudly designed and built in the United States”—not China or elsewhere.
The new phone will be available for $499 in August or September, according to The Trump Organization, the holding company for most of Trump’s business ventures and investments, and feature an etched US flag and Trump’s campaign slogan “Make America Great Again”, going by images of the phone on trumpmobile.com.
Trump Mobile, on the other hand, offers a flagship plan called “The 47 Plan”, priced at $47.45 per month—no surprises here, Trump is the 47th president of the United States and the additional 45 cents seems like a nod to his first term as the 45th president.
The Trump Organization said in a release that the plan includes unlimited talk, text, and data, free international calling to over 100 countries, and no contracts or credit checks. The plan also provides free calling to countries with US military bases, to help military families stay connected.
The mobile service and ‘T1’ smartphone, an apparent alternative to Apple as it is priced much lower compared to iPhones starting at over $1,000, are key additions to a long list of ventures of The Trump Organization—a family business already thriving on real estates and hotels.
The launch comes weeks after Trump, in a public outburst directed at Apple CEO Tim Cook, said iPhones must be manufactured and built in the US instead of China or India, else Apple must shell out an additional tariff of 25 percent to the US government.
The POTUS also targeted Apple with posts on his social media platform Truth Social, pushing for America-built iPhones, which experts say could cost up to $3,500 each due to higher US manufacturing costs. Apart from the significant hike in consumer prices, it would also require Apple to shift full-scale production of smartphones to American soil.
To top it off, iPhone 17 is expected to launch with the planned release of ‘T1’ to add more spice and heat to this intense rivalry.
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Made in America?
Although Trump Organization’s ‘T1’ is touted to be “designed and built in the United States,” all of its major components are expected to come from overseas, at least initially.
Reports in The Wall Street Journal and New York Post suggest that key components of ‘T1’, like the AMOLED display, processor and the camera sensor, would likely fly in from major firms of South Korea, China, Taiwan and Japan. Eric Trump, apparently sensing the need to clear the air, told The Benny Show podcast Monday that “eventually all the phones can be built in the United States,” but initially, they “may” rely on foreign manufacturing.
It is also understood that the US lacks the infrastructure necessary to design and mass produce smartphones at competitive prices, making overseas production the only feasible option.
Francisco Jeronimo, vice-president of research firm IDC (International Data Corporation), told NBC: “There is no way the phone was designed from scratch or will be assembled entirely in the US. That’s completely impossible.”
Blake Przesmicki, an analyst at Counterpoint Research, also had strong views on the ‘T1’. “Despite being advertised as an American-made phone, it is likely that this device will be initially produced by a Chinese ODM,” he said in a note Monday, according to NBC New York.
Some reports even suggest that the ‘T1’ is a “rebranded” Chinese-made T-Mobile REVVL 7 Pro 5G, originally priced at $250.
The Trump Mobile launch, despite missiles and nuclear plants dominating the headlines, gave social media users something to laugh about. Several users on X questioned the product’s branding, authenticity and “Made in America” status.
My friend just bought a Trump Mobile phone. It only allows you to text in CAPS, the payment has to be made out to cash, the spell check misspells every word, and Siri is Laura Loomer. pic.twitter.com/OJFRs6xUAl
— 💙🌊 Zero Dark Twenty-Nine 🌊🌊🖋️🧫 (@herotimeszero) June 16, 2025
Trump Phone pic.twitter.com/avGeazON1x
— Canada Hates Trump (@AntiTrumpCanada) June 16, 2025
‘The greatest salesman’
Trump has long followed a business strategy centered on licensing his name and brand across a wide variety of products and ventures.
In a financial disclosure this year, he reported making more than $600 million in income, including from items such as Trump-branded Bibles, watches, sneakers and fragrances.
Forbes in March estimated his net worth to be $5.1 billion, more than double what it was a year ago, with the surge credited to the US president’s “die-hard following”, Truth Social, which he uses actively for promotional purposes, and crypto. In another article, it termed Trump as “the greatest salesman in American history”.
Over the years, Trump has put his name on various items to tap into his popularity, so much so, that even a listicle may fall short for having them all. Sample this: Trump Steaks, Trump Vodka, Trump-branded clothing such as suits, ties, cufflinks, wallets, eyewear, MAGA hats, perfumes, sneakers, watches and even a board game.
Now comes Trump Mobile, and it’s not the first attempt to break into the tech market. The Trump empire has tried that before and the feedback wasn’t too kind.
One was Trump Network (2009–2011), a company selling “customised vitamins” based on urinalysis. It collapsed within two years and was subsequently sold off.
Trump TV, proposed in 2016, was an idea that was never executed. After Trump won the presidency in 2016, the idea lost its spark.
Trump University (2005–2010) was a real estate training programme. It was sued for fraud, with the lawsuits settled in 2016 for $25 million.
Dedipya Agarwal is an intern who graduated from ThePrint School of Journalism
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
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