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> Unless of course you need aerospace or space-qualified screws in which case they are definitely coming from the US.

Are you claiming somehow that China would be incapable of making these? Or just admitting that the USG generally restricts such contracts to be sourced from the US only? And what does this have to do with Apple?

China had 92 space launches in 2025, so they can make space screws I presume.

> Unless of course you need aerospace or space-qualified screws

Ok... Is that what they're using to build Mac Minis and is that what they need to iterate on typically?

China has a peopled space station in orbit right now, a planned human landing on the moon in 2030, and has been deploying moon orbit relay satellites, moon rovers, returning moon samples to Earth, for a future moon base in the 2030s.

Well, if your Mac mini is to be painted Space Gray then the only way to go is to put in there a few $40 space-qualified screws made in the US to justify the price increase.

> Unless of course you need aerospace or space-qualified screws in which case they are definitely coming from the US.

So that's why macs are so expensive.

> you need aerospace or space-qualified screws

This is, largely, a scam made up for costs plus contracting.

> Kind of hard to deliver those numbers when you can't keep slaves on call in a dormitory.

Or extensive automation, of course. We're alienated from the supply chain probably by design.