In a recent visit to Apple’s manufacturing plant, Mr. President made false claims to give shallow justification to his economic policies. Perhaps, Donald Trump is personifying that betrayal is the heart of politics.
Trump tweeted, Today, I opened a major Apple Manufacturing plant in Texas that will bring high paying jobs back to America. Trump repeatedly revered Apple’s plant as a symbol of progressive U.S. manufacturing and industrial development.
To add to Trump’s knowledge, the new construction is not an Apple manufacturing plant. Instead, Apple is building a new campus just like they have in Cupertino. The current manufacturing plant is manufacturing Mac Pro computers since Obama’s time.
While visiting the factory, Trump said that “Anybody that followed my campaign, I would always talk about Apple, that I want to see Apple building plants in the United States. And that’s what’s happening.”
According to Apple’s official press release, the company’s new campus in Austin, Texas, will have a 3-million square foot area provided with the opportunity to deploy with 5000 employees with a capacity to grow to 15000. It will cost up to $1 billion.
Trump started the rolling ball of trade war against China in a bid to secure regional dominance in Asia as well as providing a temporary growth to local companies. He banned China-based Huawei and imposed tariffs. But, these ins and outs cause to create much domestic unrest in the U.S. corporate sector. As when Trump criticized the growing power of social media platforms in his U.N. speech, the next day, the tech giants faced a $56 billion loss in their market cap. Still, the Trump administration doesn’t seem to slow down their rift.
These factors led to companies like Apple to lobby for tariff-exemptions. The U.S. trade regulators have confirmed they approved 10 out of 15 requests for tariff exemptions by Apple to import parts from China. It caused quite a stir in the U.S. industrial sector. Tim Cook, this time, played well and successfully get the most out of it.
Today, Trump, in his talk with media, asks Tim Cook not to worry about tariffs.
“The nice part is, he doesn’t have to worry about tariffs,” Trump says. “When you build it here, you don’t have to worry about tariffs.”
The hard reality is Trump is not right here as well. Because even after some tax exemptions, Apple is currently paying tariffs on 5 Mac Pro parts, as Trump’s new system of tariffs imposed on parts like Cooling System for Mac Pro but not on finished products like iPhone. Tim Cook once joked about moving Mac Pro production to China because the tariffs on parts are hurting the cost of Mac Pro by a considerable margin even after producing Mac Pro computers in Texas.
The future of tariffs is ambiguous. A change in tariffs is expected, and it can cover finished products as well. China-US talks can result in tariffs removed. However, companies like Apple are suffering to keep up to match the demand of consumers.
Apple believes it will be contributing $350 billion to the US economy by 2023.
