From a proprietary interest standpoint, one would think the law supports the view you describe.
Do you know whether Apple has argued it will not disclose trade secrets but will give the USG the information it requests pursuant to a court order, if that information is available?
A side issue may be that if the hardware is manufactured in China and it has the software (undoubtedly)...those clever fella's already have the keys.
Their argument is that the info is scrambled in a way that they can’t get at either, and after ten tries, everything is erased (eliminating brute force approaches). The government doesn’t like the erase part, among other things.