When the Trump phone was first announced last June, it was proudly promised to be made in America. Trump Mobile quickly walked back that claim, and now promises only that the T1 is “assembled” in the US. Except… it didn’t walk it back everywhere, with one website page still promising that the phone is “American-made,” in likely violation of Federal Trade Commission rules.
On the Trump Mobile website’s “Phones” page you can still find the erroneous claim that the T1 is a “Premium American-Made Smartphone for Performance & Privacy,” which I was tipped off to by SEO consultant Sam Penny. It’s not actually visible on the page itself, but appears in its meta title — which in turn populates both the browser tab and search engine results. I’ve asked Trump Mobile for comment; as you might have guessed by now, I haven’t heard back.
“American-made” is specifically mentioned by the FTC as a regulated phrase under its Made in USA rules. In order to use it in marketing, a product must be “all or virtually all” made in the US, right down to its components. We still don’t know exactly where the T1 Phone is manufactured, but even Trump Mobile has admitted that its components largely aren’t US-sourced.
Otherwise, it’s been a quiet week in the world of Trump Mobile. CNET has been publishing its review of the phone in installments, so check that out if you want some early insight into its practical performance, including a few camera samples and battery life notes. We’re still waiting for our phones.
Meanwhile The Guardian dug a little deeper into last week’s customer data breach with the help of Jonathan Soma, a programmer and professor at Columbia University. Soma noted that the leaked data included a total of 27,224 preorder entries, but that the website generated a new entry every time someone reached the last step before payment, regardless of whether they paid the $100 deposit for the phone or not. As The Guardian notes, that means “the true number of preorders was likely to be even lower.”
Finally, I might have found the third T1 Phone in the wild. A video showing the phone booting up was posted to TikTok and Instagram by Tres Wittum, a Republican who’s run for both Congress and the Senate in Tennessee, losing the Republican primary each time. I haven’t been able to confirm that Wittum genuinely bought his own T1 Phone, but it does seem possible — if true, it would be the first sign that Trump Mobile has actually shipped a phone to a regular buyer. I’ve asked Wittum how he got the phone, but haven’t heard back yet.
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