President Donald Trump has escalated his standoff with Apple CEO Tim Cook, threatening to impose a 25 percent tariff on Apple as a company.
Trump has already made it clear that he doesn’t want Apple making iPhones in China or India. In a Truth Social post on Friday, he had a clear message for Cook: Move manufacturing to the United States, or else.
“I have long ago informed Tim Cook of Apple that I expect their iPhone’s that will be sold in the United States of America will be manufactured and built in the United States, not India, or anyplace else,” the president posted. “If that is not the case, a Tariff of at least 25% must be paid by Apple to the U.S.”
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Trump’s massive China tariffs jeopardized U.S. tech companies, including Apple, which has historically made the majority of its devices in China. But the company was already shifting iPhone manufacturing to India and reportedly plans to produce all U.S.-bound iPhones in India by 2026.
Last week, the president said he expressed his unhappiness to Cook personally. “I said, ‘Tim look, we treated you really good, we put up with all the plants that you build in China for years, now you got build us,'” Trump told the press, as reported by CNBC. “‘We’re not interested in you building in India, India can take care of themselves … we want you to build here.'”
And now, it looks like Trump is prepared to penalize Apple directly if Cook doesn’t comply. That said, building iPhones in the U.S. would likely be extraordinarily expensive and burdensome for the tech giant — and more expensive for Apple customers. It’s difficult to say exactly how much a made in America iPhone would cost, but Mashable’s Stan Schroeder looked into it and reported it would cost shoppers around $3,000 per iPhone at best and six figures at worse. Some analysts doubt it’s even possible, given how long it would take to get labor, supply, and infrastructure off the ground, costing Apple billions in the process.
In February, Apple announced that it would spend $500 billion in the U.S. over the next four years, which includes building a new factory in Texas and expanding training and facilities for workers. But that doesn’t seem to be enough for Trump.
