Right now, the US and China are in a trade war with each other. As part of the US government’s move to pressure China, they have slapped tariffs on the import of goods from China to the US, which has affected many tech companies, such as Apple, who have traditionally relied on China for more affordable manufacturing.
While we have yet to hear if Google and its products have been affected by this trade war, it looks like the company won’t be taking any chances. In a report from Nikkei, it has been suggested that Google will be looking to move the production of their Pixel phones out of China and to Vietnam, potentially avoiding the trade war in the process.
That being said, this is actually not the first time Google has considered shifting some of their operations out of China to other parts of the world. Earlier this year, it was reported that Google was looking to shift Nest and server hardware production to Taiwan and Malaysia. Google has yet to officially comment on the report, but we wouldn’t be surprised if it were true.
The current administration of the US government has been making a push for more products to be made stateside. This has resulted in some Chinese companies, such as Foxconn, to explore moving some of their operations out of China and to the US so as to continue their business with US tech firms.