Report: Trump imposed 25% tariff on foreign made iPhones to get back at Tim Cook
A report says Trump's decision to tariff non-U.S.-built iPhone models was done to get back at Tim Cook for a slight.
According to The New York Times, President Donald Trump had a particular reason for threatening Apple last week. Last Friday, the president wrote in a post on Truth Social that he would impose a 25% tax on every iPhone shipped to the U.S. except for units that were built in the States. The Times says that Trump's threat was made because Apple CEO Tim Cook decided not to take Trump up on the invitation he made to have the executive accompany the president on his trip to the Middle East.
Cook's decision not to go with the president to the Middle East with executives and representatives of other companies seemed to aggravate Trump. While in Riyadh with Jensen Huang, the chief executive of Nvidia, Trump had some nice things to say about Huang who made the trip; at the same time, the president took a shot at Apple's CEO. "I mean, Tim Cook isn’t here but you are," Trump said to Huang during an event attended by other CEOs including Open AI's Sam Altman and AMD's Lisa Su.
The president continued to pick on Cook and when in Qatar, Trump did mention that he "had a little problem with Tim Cook." Before discussing the problem, Trump first praised Apple for planning to spend $500 billion in the U.S. over the next four years. But he also told Cook, "I hear you’re building all over India. I don’t want you building in India."
The Visual Intelligence feature on iPhone 16. | Image credit-Apple
We've mentioned in the past that Tim Cook seemed to do a good job "playing" the president. But we wrote that back in 2020 and this is not the same Trump from his first term. This version is used to getting his way no matter what stands between him and his goal. Trump seems to find a way to get rid of whatever is in his way. In this case, the president wants Apple to make the iPhone in the U.S. no matter how impossible a task this is.
The U.S. workforce will not man an assembly line to build iPhones for the low pay that those in China receive. Additionally, creating a supply chain like the one in Asia that feeds the necessary parts and components to Apple to build the iPhone is just not something that can be replicated here. The problem is that no one dares to tell Trump that as admirable as his goal is to build the iPhone in the U.S., it isn't good for Apple. And since moving iPhone production to America would raise prices, it also isn't good for U.S. consumers.
The tariffs are expected to start at the end of June and will affect all smartphones not made in the U.S. including handsets shipped to the U.S. by Apple's top rival Samsung.
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