On the back of every iPhone , tiny print cue you it was “ plan by Apple in California . Assembled in China . ” One of president - elect Trump ’s campaign hope was getting Apple to move production here — and he read he secern Tim Cook that very thing directly .
In his meeting Tuesday with the New York Times ( afull transcriptis available ) , Trump say he ’d speak to Cook on the phone .
I got a call from Tim Cook at Apple , and I said , ‘ Tim , you get it on one of the things that will be a real accomplishment for me is when I get Apple to build a big plant in the United States , or many fully grown plants in the United States , where instead of going to China , and going to Vietnam , and last to the position that you go to , you ’re making your intersection right here . ’
Cook replied , according to Trump , “ I understand that . ” So then Trump dangled the carrot of taxation break .
[ Cook ] said , ‘ I understand that . ’ I enjoin : ‘ I suppose we ’ll create the incentives for you , and I believe you ’re going to do it . We ’re going for a very big taxation baseball swing for corporations , which you ’ll be happy about . ’
It ’s deserving noting that the current Mac Pro , redesigned in 2013 , isassembled in the USA , in a factory outside Austin , Texas . But the Mac Pro might just be Apple ’s least - sell Cartesian product . The iPhone is another story . Cook has take in the past that the cause iPhones are assemble in China is mostly one of scale — Apple ca n’t find enough skilled actor here to fill the needs of a company that sells as many as400 iPhones per minuite . ( Check outthis fun sitefor a representation of how much product Apple move each 2d . )
Cook told Charlie Rosein December 2015 , “ The U.S. , over time , began to stop having as many vocational kind of skills . I intend , you’re able to take every tool and buy the farm maker in the United States and probably put them in a room that we ’re presently sitting in . In China , you would have to have multiple football game fields . ”
So we ’ll see if tax breaks , should they materialize , are enough to make for manufacturing of any Apple product back to the United States during Trump ’s presidency , or if more morphological changes in pedagogy will also be need that might take more time to bear out . Apple is already reportedly await into what such a move would cost , with a report in Nikkei Asian Review that the company had asked Foxconn to develop a news report on the feasibility of building iPhone assemblage plants in the United States .
Another component in Apple ’s decision - making could be Trump ’s design to stick in a 45 percent taxation on products imported from China . Any of these changes , should they come to pass , could affect the retail price of iPhones — a topic explored inthis hebdomad ’s episodeof The iPhone Show .
