Golden Promise, Empty Display Case – Are the Trumps Fleecing Their Own Base?

While one device after another is unveiled at CES in Las Vegas, the golden smartphone from Donald Trump’s orbit remains invisible. Trump Mobile had announced a market launch of the T1 phone for late summer 2025 and cited a price of around 500 dollars, well below current iPhone models. This was accompanied by the promise that the device would be designed and manufactured in the United States. Our reporting shows, however, that both the timeline and the production claims were gradually rolled back. As early as June 2025, it became clear that manufacturing in China was planned. America First played no role in this, Trump First did.

Nevertheless, deposits of 100 dollars are still being accepted to this day. The device itself has never been shown publicly. Technical specifications are missing, as is any reliable information about manufacturing. For a project presented as close to market, this is striking. While other manufacturers deliver, Trump Mobile remains stuck with announcements and advance promises. Whether the phone even exists cannot so far be substantiated.

That Trump insisted on June 18, 2025, that the phone was only being manufactured “temporarily in Asia” because “Democrats had destroyed American factories” caused audible astonishment even among sympathetic Republicans. A conservative tech investor compared the explanation, off the record, to “a Big Mac suddenly being justified as using imported beef from Venezuela.” Our reporting shows, however, that this supposedly temporary production never took place. Repeated inquiries about the location, timeframe, and scale of this claimed manufacturing went unanswered. Trump’s statement of June 18 therefore points to a production process for which no verifiable evidence exists — a production that never happened.

Our reporting further found that to this day it is not known which plant was supposed to produce the device. The reason is simple: there are no reliable indications of a real production arrangement. No customs or export documents can be found, nor FCC test devices, IMEI registrations, or supply contracts. There are also no traces of displays, processors, batteries, or camera modules. In industry circles, where even early planning usually leaves footprints, there is nothing. This is unusual for a product that was publicly promoted as being close to delivery. All inquiries about the device are consistently left unanswered.

According to our findings, however, more than 500,000 people have already signed contracts. This results in a potential sum of around 50 million US dollars from deposits alone. At the same time, there is no transparent information on planned production volumes, no safeguarding of customer funds through an escrow model, no clear refund logic, and no terms and conditions that define production steps or binding deadlines. At CES there was no presence, no hands-on demonstration, no published development timeline, and no allocations by international mobile associations or indications from major carrier databases.

The project had been presented as a patriotic endeavor, as a technological counterpart to imported electronics, and as an economic promise to its own supporters. What remains so far is only a name, a price, and a payment button. The discrepancy between public announcements and verifiable facts is substantial. Anyone placing money for this phone today does so without a visible product, without a verifiable supply chain, and without reliable commitments. That is not a minor detail, but the decisive finding of our reporting.