I'm sure there are multiple reasons for this move and labor costs are almost certainly the biggest factor. But one aspect that I haven't seen discussed but which may be relevant is that companies increasingly turn to the ITC as a patent enforcement lever. The ITC is a US agency which can effect import bans of products found to infringe. Obviously a great workaround to an otherwise crippling import ban decision would be having a US based assembly network.
Now the big arena is mobile and this announcement is about Mac lines but it's not hard to believe that this is a tip of the iceberg investment and that Apple might increasingly move to a system of using Foxconn's non-China factories around the world. Apple is partly financing the Brazil plant for Foxconn IIRC.
Another aspect that hasn't been discussed is the opening around the world of rare earth mines (reopening in the case of the California mine). Part of the reason "those jobs [weren't] coming back" was because China's rare earth's monopoly increasingly was reserved for Chinese made products.
Now the big arena is mobile and this announcement is about Mac lines but it's not hard to believe that this is a tip of the iceberg investment and that Apple might increasingly move to a system of using Foxconn's non-China factories around the world. Apple is partly financing the Brazil plant for Foxconn IIRC.
Another aspect that hasn't been discussed is the opening around the world of rare earth mines (reopening in the case of the California mine). Part of the reason "those jobs [weren't] coming back" was because China's rare earth's monopoly increasingly was reserved for Chinese made products.