President-elect Donald Trump, following up on a campaign promise that he would “get Apple to start making their computers and their iPhones on our land, not in China” – and he has now said the same thing directly to Apple CEO Tim Cook.
In a recent interview with the New York Times, Trump offered the following:
I got a call from Tim Cook at Apple, and I said, ‘Tim, you know one of the things that will be a real achievement for me is when I get Apple to build a big plant in the United States, or many big plants in the United States, where instead of going to China, and going to Vietnam, and going to the places that you go to, you’re making your product right here.’
Cook apparently offered a brief, noncommittal reply, saying that he understood Trump’s interest.
Trump, in turn, apparently offered the following:
“I think we’ll create the incentives for you, and I think you’re going to do it. We’re going for a very large tax cut for corporations, which you’ll be happy about.”
Suppliers said recently that the idea of Apple doing all or most of its manufacturing in the U.S. is impractical due to the lack of the required vocational skills – and wouldn’t in any case create jobs in the USA.
American electronics companies often outsource production due to cost, economists having stated that moving production back to the U.S. could cost some manufacturing jobs done in China where human labor is used to be lost to machines if production moves back to the U.S.
Surprisingly, cost is not a huge barrier – a recent analysis suggesting that US-made iPhones would cost only $30-40 more, a premium many might be willing to pay.
Apple was also cited in regard to another one of Trump’s campaign promises: the Chinese government stating that iPhone sales ‘will suffer‘ if the president-elect implements his threatened 45% tariffs on Chinese imports.
Via 9to5Mac and the New York Times
One reply on “Trump pushes for Apple to manufacture products in the U.S., offers tax incentives”
Where is Apple going to get and be able to train 500,000 american workers to build an iPhone? What company in the US can hire so many people in one place? Saying and doing are 2 different things. In China, Apple is NOT making iPhones. It’s Foxconn, TSMC, Pegatron and many others. Are there any companies in the US able to source 1MM people to make and assemble these? What will happen is that if Apple somehow manages to bring production here, the only way they can find enough people is to start bringing in Mexicans because there aren’t enough Americans (not even considering work ethic issues) to work on the assembly line