I suspect it has more to do with a lack of backdoors in the phone. It's not entirely unreasonable to think that some of the more advanced countries would know

I suspect it has more to do with a lack of backdoors in the phone. It's not entirely unreasonable to think that some of the more advanced countries would know that the US is backdooring just about every phone in firmware (not OS but code running on other, non OS chips) and do something to ensure that their phones are not backdoored. Of course that COMPLETELY ignores the fact that a cell phone can't work AT ALL unless the phone company knows roughly where you are. And if the phone company HAS to know, and the phone company has been compromised by the NSA, then it stands to reason that the NSA can track you even without the firmware backdoors on the phone itself. The most convincing lies have a bit of truth sprinkled in to disarm your "that's gotta be bullshit" meter.