During Tuesdays sit down with the New York Times, President-Elect Donald Trump mentioned a conversation he had after the election with Apple CEO Tim Cook. After the election, Cook reached out to Trump to congratulate him, according to the President-Elect. Trump also relayed part of the conversation that dealt with moving iPhone production to the U.S.
Humility not being one of his prominent traits, Trump steered the conversation to himself by saying that it would be a real feather in his hat if he could get Apple to build a factory in the U.S. instead of China or Vietnam. Trump continued by saying that he would offer incentives to Apple that Trump believes will end up with a spanking new Apple plant being built in the U.S. The President-Elect also reportedly told Cook that his administration is planning on submitting to Congress a huge business tax cut that Cook will be happy about.
We must say that Apple might have seen which way the wind was blowing before others did. A recent report out of Japan stated that back in June, Apple had asked Foxconn and Pegatron, two of the contract manufacturers that assemble the iPhone in Asia, about creating a plan to build the device in the U.S. According to the report, Foxconn agreed to look into it while Pegatron cited the prohibitive cost of such a move to turn down Apple.
While building the iPhone in the U.S. would be positive for Trumps hyper-sensitive ego, and bring more jobs to the U.S., it would also result in a huge price jump for the iPhone as Apple would have to pay more for components and labor. And if Apple cant raise the price of the device to cover its higher costs, its margins will shrink.
"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.’ He said, ‘I understand that.’ I said: ‘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.’ But we’re going for big tax cuts, we have to get rid of regulations, regulations are making it impossible. Whether you’re liberal or conservative, I mean I could sit down and show you regulations that anybody would agree are ridiculous. It’s gotten to be a free-for-all. And companies can’t, they can’t even start up, they can’t expand, they’re choking."-President-Elect Donald Trump during N.Y. Times interview
Its still way too early to predict what will happen when Trump takes over. After all, his new tone with Apple is a far cry from the Boycott Apple stance he took during the campaign.Back then, he was upset with Apple for not unlocking the iPhone that belonged to a deceased terrorist.
source: NYTimes via CNET