WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Wednesday is expected to celebrate at the White House a commitment by Apple to increase its U.S. investments by an additional $100 billion over the next four years.
“Today’s announcement with Apple is another win for our manufacturing industry that will simultaneously help reshore the production of critical components to protect America’s economic and national security,” White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers said.
Apple had previously said it intended to invest $500 billion domestically, a figure it will now increase to $600 billion. Trump in recent months has criticized the tech company and its CEO, Tim Cook, for efforts to shift iPhone production to India to avoid the tariffs his Republican administration had planned for China.
While in Qatar earlier this year, Trump said there was “a little problem” with Apple and recalled a conversation with Cook in which he said he told the CEO, “I don’t want you building in India.”
India has incurred Trump’s wrath, as the president signed an order Wednesday to put an additional 25% tariff on the world’s most populous country for its use of Russian oil. The new import taxes to be imposed in 21 days could put the combined tariffs on Indian goods at 50%.
As part of the Apple announcement, the investments will be about bringing more of its supply chain and advanced manufacturing to the U.S.
Apple’s new pledge comes just a few weeks after it forged a $500 million deal with MP Materials, which runs the only rare earths producer in the country. That agreement will enable MP Materials to expand a factory in Texas to use recycled materials to produce magnets that make iPhones vibrate.
Speaking on a recent investors call, Cook emphasized that “there’s a load of different things done in the United States.” As examples, he cited some of the iPhone components made in the U.S. such as the device’s glass display and module for identifying people’s faces and then indicated the company was gearing to expand its productions of other components in its home country.
“We’re doing more in this country, and that’s on top of having roughly 19 billion chips coming out of the US now, and we will do more,” Cook told analysts last week, without elaborating.
Apple Inc., which is based in Cupertino, California, didn’t immediately comment Wednesday.
Bloomberg News first reported the announcement of Apple’s additional investment commitment.
News of Apple’s latest investment in the U.S. caused the company’s stock price to surge by nearly 6% in Wednesday’s mid-day trading. That gains reflect investors’ relief that Cook “is extending an olive branch” to the Trump administration, said Nancy Tengler, CEO of money manager Laffer Tengler Investments, which owns Apple stock.
Despite Wednesday’s upturn, Apple’s shares are still down by 14% so far this year, a reversal of fortune that has also been driven by the company’s botched start in the pivotal field of artificial intelligence.
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