Tim Cook announces an additional $100 billion from Apple to fulfill Donald Trump's dream: manufacturing the iPhone in the United States
The US president even uses tariff blackmail against his own companies. He threatened Apple with a 25% tax if it didn't manufacture iPhones in the United States, and the company responded by investing $500 billion. Unconvinced, Trump announced an additional $100 billion investment today.
Tim Cook, with all seriousness and optimism, presented his $600 billion investment plan for the next four years to the White House.
This doesn't yet guarantee that the iPhone will carry the "Made in the USA" seal, but it paves the way for it. The secret lies in the additional cost.
Using a Trump-style whiteboard, Apple CEO Tim Cook announced a new US manufacturing program that will "bring more of Apple's supply chain and advanced manufacturing" to the United States.
For example, the company founded by Steve Jobs will expand its partnership with Corning to manufacture all protective glass for the iPhone and Apple Watch in Kentucky. It also announced an agreement with Samsung's US factory in Texas "to launch a groundbreaking new chip manufacturing technology, never before used anywhere else in the world."
Apple will open a server factory in Houston next year and will launch a manufacturing academy to "train" American companies in advanced manufacturing techniques used in China and Taiwan.
All of these investments will ensure that more iPhone components are manufactured in the United States, but all experts agree that 100% iPhone manufacturing in the United States, as Donald Trump wants, is impossible without massive cost overruns.
“I’m proud to say that Apple is a leader in creating an end-to-end silicon supply chain right here in the United States, from design to hardware, chip production, manufacturing, and packaging,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said during the White House presentation.
"We will continue to work with our suppliers to bring more of this incredibly advanced work to the United States," he added.
Trump's plan is moving forward, but it will only succeed if the rest of the world stands idly by while Trump imposes tariffs on his own, allowing their companies to go bankrupt because of the tax or because manufacturing is moved to the United States.