( CNN ) -- Both President Obama and Mitt Romney flubbed the big question on jobs at Tuesday night 's debate . Moderator Candy Crowley noted that Apple makes its iPhones and iPads in China and asked , `` How do you convince a great American company to bring that manufacturing back here ? '' Romney talked about reducing corporate taxes , getting tough with China by making it `` play by the rules , '' and stopping its currency manipulation . Obama said that some jobs are just never going to come back because the labor wages abroad are so much lower than in America . What the president wants to do is to double U.S. exports and create new high-wage jobs to replace the low-wage jobs that have been sent offshore . Obviously , neither debater knows the details of how the dynamics of trade and globalization work . Why Apple will never bring manufacturing jobs back to the U.S. For starters , the iPhones and iPads are not really made in China . They are only assembled there . According to the Asian Development Bank , the assembly accounts for $ 6.50 of the final $ 178.96 wholesale cost of an iPhone . Researchers at the Personal Computing Industry Center estimate the assembly value of a $ 500 iPad at about $ 12 . The major value of these devices is in the semiconductors , electronic displays and other key components . These high-technology and high-capital components are largely made in Japan , South Korea , Taiwan , and to a lesser extent Germany . A few are even made in America . None of these are low-wage countries . Japan and Germany , in fact , are high-wage countries . The labor component of making these parts is quite small . What about taxes ? Japan 's 39.5 % corporate income tax rate topped the 39.2 % of the United States until it was dropped to 38.01 % earlier this year . So it 's not exactly a tax haven or low tax jurisdiction . Nevertheless , Japan 's computer chip and electronic display makers are major suppliers of components to the iPhone and iPad as well as to the whole range of competing phones , tablets and computers . Furthermore , Apple and many global electronics companies are already paying less taxes by dint of elaborate accounting schemes that funnel revenue to tax havens like Singapore , the Cayman Islands , Bermuda and Liechtenstein . As for China 's practice of currency manipulation , it has been an irritant , but not an insurmountable one . Technically at odds with international trade and monetary rules , the Chinese government has intervened frequently in currency markets to keep the dollar strong and the yuan weak by buying dollars . More recently , China has allowed the yuan to rise closer to market rates , although many analysts believe it is still undervalued because present rates do not fully reflect increases in Chinese productivity . Romney may thus be justified in his critique . The risks of doing business in China must also be taken into consideration . In the past two weeks , we have seen Japanese factories in China trashed by mobs in the wake of a dispute between Japan and China over who owns a few specks of rocky islets in the East China Sea . Even if Chinese labor is cheap , incidents like these can be costly . The real reason that these kinds of jobs are n't coming back is that U.S. producers no longer know how to produce many of these product components . There is no significant U.S. producer of flat panel electronic displays . And U.S. semiconductor makers have continually been losing to competitors like South Korea 's Samsung and Taiwan 's TSMC . The jobs involved in the production of these components are exactly the high-wage , high-benefit jobs Obama said he wants to create . The only way to get them back is for the U.S. to regain the strong position it once occupied in making things . Obama seems to be edging in this direction with his call for spurring manufacturing . But a U.S. production renaissance will require a lot more than the president 's piecemeal approach so far . It means we need a comprehensive competitiveness strategy similar to those now pursued by South Korea , Germany , Taiwan , Japan , Singapore , China and others . It is not written that America must suffer a drain of ever more highly skilled jobs to overseas locations . To halt this dynamic , we must fight fire with fire . The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Clyde Prestowitz .
Clyde Prestowitz : Debate shows neither candidate understands details of global trade dynamics . Prestowitz : The major value of iPhones is in the semiconductors and other key parts . He says U.S. producers do n't know how to make these key components anymore . Prestowitz : If we want high-wage jobs in the U.S. , we need a competitive strategy .