David Pierce, The Verge:

[…] sometime in the last several days, the Trump Mobile site appears to have been scrubbed of all language indicating the phone is to be made in the USA. (Like, for instance, the huge banner on the homepage that says the T1 is “MADE IN THE USA.” Just to name one example.)

Instead, the Trump Mobile website now includes what can only be described as vague, pro-American gestures in the direction of smartphone manufacturing. The T1’s new tagline is “Premium Performance. Proudly American.” Its website says the device is “designed with American values in mind” and there are “American hands behind every device.” Under Key Features, the first thing listed is “American-Proud Design.” None of this indicates, well, anything. It certainly doesn’t say the device is made in the USA, or even designed in the USA. There are just… some hands. In America.

Someone probably whispered “lawsuit” into a Trumpian ear, since “Made in USA” has a very specific legal meaning, state Attorneys General might want a word, oh, and there’s this:

[…] the Lanham Act gives any person (such as a competitor) who is damaged by a false designation of origin the right to sue the party making the false claim.

(Imagine Apple and Google using the Lanham Act to challenge the claim? Fireworks and popcorn.)

Several specs of the purported device were also changed or yanked from the site—the screen is now 6.25“ instead of 6.78”, and the previously claimed 256 GB storage and 12 GB memory are nowhere to be found. The release timing is also changed, to “later this year” instead of August or September.

Despite the scrubbing and rewording, Trump Mobile still claims, in a statement to USA Today, that the T1 Phone will be made in the U.S:

Chris Walker, a Trump Mobile spokesperson, dismissed the report, saying that “T1 phones are proudly being made in America. Speculation to the contrary is simply inaccurate.”

(Interesting that this statement only went to USA Today, and no other news outlet—including The Verge.)

The T1 site now has this completely vapid claim about the phone:

it’s brought to life right here in the USA. With American hands behind every device […]

I previously wagered that

someone will get a hundred devices’ worth of Chinese cellphone parts and screw them together in their garage, and that will satisfy the “Made in America” claim.

I’ll bet that’s what they mean by “brought to life,” but perhaps even that low bar will prove too ambitious for the Grifter-in-Chief’s family business—I fully expect this phone will never ship.