It is the latest wobble for a project that once promised a US-made smartphone this year for $499, aiming to take a bite out of the Fruity Cargo Cult Apple and Samsung.
Trump Mobile’s customer service team blamed the recent US government shutdown for delivery delays and said there was a “strong possibility” the device would not be shipped as planned.
The “T1” handset, paired with a $47.45-a-month plan, was announced in June as the Trump family business tried to cash in on Donald Trump’s return to the White House.
The launch landed right as the president took a swing at the Fruity Cargo Cult Apple for leaning hard on Chinese manufacturing, demanding iPhones be built in the US and threatening 25 per cent tariffs on it and Samsung.
Trump Mobile initially said the T1 would launch in August and be “built in the United States”, with a $100 pre-order payment to secure the device.
That “built in the United States” line was greeted with the sort of scepticism you usually reserve for magic beans, with supply chain watchers noting how dependent smartphones are on Asian parts and production.
IDC estimates that less than five per cent of iPhone components are currently made in the US.
Within weeks, Trump Mobile toned it down, tweaking the marketing to say the phone would instead be “brought to life in the United States.” The August date then slid to the end of the year.
More recently, Trump Mobile has started flogging second-hand phones from Job’s Mob and Samsung, which is a fascinating look for a brand that sells big talk about domestic kit.
It is offering the iPhone 15, launched in 2023, at $629, with the website claiming the used handsets come “without the inflated price tag”. A new iPhone 16, launched last year, costs $699 direct from Job’s Mob.
On the Samsung side, it is selling a second-hand Galaxy S24, launched at the start of 2024, for $459, a touch cheaper than Samsung’s own site, where it is listed at $489.
The team behind Trump Mobile has stayed unusually quiet since the launch event, even after the president’s sons took the stage to sell the dream.
Trump Organisation executive Donald Trump Jr said they had “partnered with some of the greatest people in the industry” to target “lacklustre performance” in the mobile sector.
A trio of Trump Mobile executives, Pat O’Brien, Eric Thomas and Don Hendrickson, were introduced, though the launch did not say much about their backgrounds.
Trump Mobile confirmed to the Financial Times that Thomas, its device chief, owned a Utah real estate business called Olympus Constructors.O’Brien is president of Ensurety Ventures. This Missouri insurance firm operates Trump Mobile’s customer service line.
Hendrickson is listed online as an executive vice president at Liberty Mobile Wireless, the little-known Florida virtual network operator that supplies the Trump Mobile plan, run out of Trump Tower in Miami. In June, O’Brien said Hendrickson had a background in the pager industry.
