President Trump’s relationship with Apple and CEO Tim Cook has devolved in recent weeks as the president has ramped up pressure on the iPhone maker over its overseas manufacturing.
Trump threatened Friday to put a 25 percent tariff on Apple products if the company failed to move more of its manufacturing back to the U.S., just weeks after publicly scolding Cook over his firm’s reliance on Indian manufacturing.
The tariff threat marks a sharp break from the more cordial relationship that Cook managed to maintain with Trump in his first term, when he scored a key tariff exemption.
“It puts Apple with their back against the wall a little because India was going to be the go-to to navigate the China tariffs,” Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives said, adding, “This is putting Apple in an almost impossible spot.”
Trump and Cook have long had a good rapport — a bright spot compared to the president’s often tense relationships with other tech leaders, like Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
This relationship paid dividends for Apple in Trump’s first term, when the president exempted electronics, including the company’s smartphones, from his China tariffs at the time.
However, Cook seems to have run up against the limitations of this relationship in Trump’s second term, in which the president appears more committed to his tariff push.
“Undoubtedly this is a really difficult environment for Apple to be operating in,” said Leo Gebbie, an industry analyst with CSS Insight. “I think the move to now start the threat of tariffs once again is quite symptomatic of the unpredictable nature of this U.S. administration.”
Trump took his most public shot at Apple yet on Friday, demanding the company reshore its manufacturing or face a tariff.
“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,” he said in a post on Truth Social.
Trump later told reporters he’s confident Apple can build products in the U.S., adding that the 25 percent tariff would be imposed at the end of June and that it would also impact Samsung because they make a similar product.
“When they build their plant here, there’s no tariff, so they’re going to be building plants here. But I had an understanding with Tim that he wouldn’t be doing this. He said he’s going to India to build plants. I said, ‘That’s okay to go to India, but you’re not going to sell into here without tariffs,’ and that’s the way it is,” Trump said.
“The iPhone, if they’re going to sell it in America, I want it to be built in the United States,” he added.
While it’s not entirely clear what is driving the president’s new tariff threat, key Apple supplier Foxconn recently revealed that it plans to invest $1.5 billion in its India unit, according to Reuters.
“It’s an iconic American brand. It supplies to the world, and it’s made in China. For Trump, the ‘I’m going to rearrange the global trade market’ idea, imagine a great victory you have if you force Apple not to go to a third way, but to go the American way for manufacturing,” said a source close to the White House.
“The destination is not just to deny China, but the destination is to create more manufacturing capacity and jobs in the U.S.,” the source added about Trump’s thinking on tariffs.
Cook was spotted Tuesday at the White House and met with Trump. Trump also has brought him up in several remarks recently, saying last week while he was in Qatar that he “had a little problem with Tim Cook yesterday.”
“I said to him, ‘Tim, you’re my friend. I treated you very good. You’re coming in with $500 billion.’ But now I hear you’re building all over India. I don’t want you building in India,’” Trump said.
When Trump announced a deal to lower tariffs on China to 30 percent, from 145 percent, he said he spoke to Cook that morning and that Apple planned to open more plants in the U.S.
The company previously announced in February that it plans to spend $500 billion in the U.S. over the next four years, including building a new factory in Texas. Apple produces the vast majority of its products in China but has increasingly sought to diversify its supply chain, moving manufacturing to countries such as India and Vietnam.
Cook had warned that Trump’s tariffs could bring down Apple’s profits in the second quarter on an earnings call on May 1, estimating at the time that the tariffs could add $900 million to Apple’s costs.
The president exempted smartphones, computers and other electronics from sweeping reciprocal tariffs, on a temporary basis, which gave companies like Apple a boost. The reduction of tariffs on China was also welcome news for Apple.
Less than an hour after threatening Apple with tariffs Friday, Trump also threatened to hit the European Union (EU) with a 50 percent import tax, arguing that negotiations with the 27-member bloc are “going nowhere.”
Trump, along with top officials like Vice President Vance, have pushed companies to make goods in the U.S. if they want to avoid tariffs.
In Friday remarks at the Naval Academy graduation, Vance argued that the U.S. has been too busy “meddling in foreign countries’ affairs” that “we stopped making things — everything from cars to computers to the weapons of war, like the ships that guard our waters and the weapons that you will use in the future.”
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent underscored the importance of Apple’s role in the semiconductor supply chain, as he sought to back up the president’s push to bring back manufacturing.
“The president is trying to bring back precision manufacturing to the U.S. and I think that one of our greatest vulnerabilities are these, this external production, especially in semiconductors, and a large part of Apple’s components are in semiconductors,” he told Fox News’ “America’s Newsroom” on Friday.
“So, we would like to have Apple help us make the semiconductor supply chain more secure,” he continued.
But experts warn that producing iPhones in the U.S. would cause prices to skyrocket.
Wedbush Securities analysts estimate that an American-made iPhone would cost about $3,500. It could also be a lengthy process to reshore manufacturing, taking five to 10 years, they noted.
“This would result in an iPhone price point that is a non-starter for Cupertino,” the analysts wrote in a Friday note, referring to Apple’s headquarters in Silicon Valley.
“We believe the concept of Apple producing iPhones in the U.S. is a fairy tale that is not feasible,” they added.
Gebbie similarly said the view from the industry is that bringing back manufacturing is a “pipe dream.”
“Apple has spent decades and billions upon billions of dollars investing in a supply chain and a manufacturing process that is very much centralized in Asia and China being the hub of that operation, but also with support in Vietnam and in India,” he said.
“The high-tech manufacturing processes that are taking place, particularly in China, they’re impossible to build overnight,” he added. “They’re impossible to build within the span of an administration, of a four-year term.”
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