Nearly a year after its release, the gold Trump Phone T1 is finally in the hands of someone who can take it apart. iFixit teamed up with NBC to put the T1 into the Lumafield industrial CT scanner. Before even a single screw was removed, the X-ray photos revealed the answer: its internal structure is almost identical to the 2024 HTC U24 Pro.
Source: ifixit
In order to verify whether this is true, ifixit's disassembly team conducted a more direct experiment: installing the HTC U24 Pro motherboard into the T1 body. This "mixed machine" started up smoothly and ran normally.
Source: ifixit
At this point, the conclusion is basically determined. This mobile phone that Trump originally promoted as "American designed, American made" is an HTC with a replaced casing; what's even more ridiculous is that this HTC is not even produced by a Taiwanese factory. According to the records in the NCC certification database, the manufacturer of the U24 Pro is Yuanchang Electronics in Guangdong.
iFixit teardown artist Shahram Mokhtari laid out all the differences he could find, and there aren't many.
The position of the flash of T1 has been moved a few millimeters by lengthening the cable, but the contacts themselves have not changed. The pattern of the speaker opening has been adjusted, but CT scans show that the speaker body and position have not changed, but the hole pattern on the casing is different. Mokhtari speculates that the project team may have originally wanted a more obvious appearance difference, but did not leave enough time to the manufacturer, and ultimately only made limited modifications to the back cover.
Source: ifixit
At the chip level, both machines are equipped with Qualcomm Snapdragon 7 Gen 3. The only difference is that the T1’s 12GB+512GB storage package comes from Micron, while HTC uses SK Hynix. Changing storage suppliers on mass-produced mobile phones is a common operation, and this is not actually a difference.
The only real difference is the battery: the T1 has a slightly larger battery capacity (19.35Wh vs. 17.23Wh), but the charging power has dropped from 60W to 30W, and the included charging head has also been shrunk accordingly.
And this battery happened to reveal the most critical information of the entire project.
The battery cells of T1 are produced in the Philippines, and the manufacturer is Newlix Mfg Inc. It was only registered in the Philippines in 2025, which almost coincides with the time when Trump announced that he would build a mobile phone.
Source: ifixit
This seems like a very strange choice. Global consumer electronics battery production capacity is highly concentrated in mainland China, regardless of raw materials, scale or price. The most reasonable explanation for bypassing Chinese suppliers and switching to a new factory in the Philippines is actually one: the order quantity of this mobile phone is too small to enter the production lines of mainstream manufacturers; in other words, we have not taken a fancy to the orders for the Trump T1 product...
Public information shows that the total sales of Trump Mobile phones and packages are about 30,000, while the official pre-order volume is 600,000 units. For the mobile phone industry, which often schedules production in units of millions, it is indeed difficult to knock on the door of the mainstream supply chain with an order of 30,000 units.
Three retreats of “Made in America”
Looking back, T1’s propaganda rhetoric has experienced a clear “step-by-step loosening”.
When the project was officially announced in June 2025, Trump Jr. and Eric Trump’s slogan for the $499 T1 was “Made in the USA”;
A few months later, the wording on the official website was quietly downgraded to "American Proud Design";
When the real machine is shipped, the only thing left on the box is "Proudly Assembled in the USA".
One year and three versions later, the scope of Trump’s promises to “believers” has been gradually narrowed.
Regarding the origin, Trump Mobile executives said that mobile phones and parts come from "preferential" or "friendly" countries.The goal is to "move the supply chain out of China as much as possible." Considering that the manufacturer of the prototype is located in Guangdong, this goal has obviously not yet been achieved.
Another interesting detail is that the American flag on the back of the T1 only has 11 visible stripes (the American flag has 13), something neither Trump Mobile nor the White House has commented on.
Source: ifixit
What role does HTC play in this?
In the whole incident, HTC has the most subtle attitude.
When asked by The Verge, HTC said the company "does not design or manufacture phones for third parties," but declined to confirm who actually makes the U24 Pro.
HTC sold the main body of its smartphone business to Google in 2017. Since then, most of HTC’s mobile phones have relied on the ODM model and have long lost their “soul”.
Therefore, the original design of U24 Pro is likely to belong to Guangdong Yuanchang Electronics rather than HTC from the beginning. If Trump Mobile wants to make a mobile phone at the same price within a few months, there is only one realistic path: to find a "white-brand mobile phone" in Huaqiangbei and directly use the factory behind it with ready-made molds and production lines.
In other words, it is very likely that T1 and U24 Pro are two "OEM" orders received by Yuanchang Electronics from HTC and Trump Mobile, rather than a simple imitation relationship.
The biggest problem is after-sales service
iFixit gave the T1 a decent rating at the end of the report: Compared with the HTC U24 Pro, which is also a 512GB version (priced at about $490 to $525 through imported channels), the $499 price tag of the T1 is not considered a premium, because all you lose is the 60W fast charging and the two flag stripes.
The real problem is that, as a typical ODM white-brand model, this phone has no public maintenance manual, Trump Mobile has no official spare parts channel, and the maintenance cycle for software updates and security patches is generally short.
iFixit gave both the T1 and U24 Pro a repairability score of 3/10:Once the hardware fails, there is a high probability that it will not be repaired.Users who pay for feelings end up getting a de facto "disposable device."
As for the truly American-made mobile phones, there is currently only Purism’s Liberty Phone: it sells for up to $2,000 and only claims that “electronic components” are made in the United States. Judging from the current situation alone, it is not impossible for smartphone manufacturing to return to the United States, but what it requires is long-term investment in manufacturing, talent and skills, not a trade war plus a slogan.
What this ambitious golden phone ultimately proves is that the United States cannot make mobile phones.