Apple CEO Tim Cook, left, and President Donald Trump speak to the press during a tour of the Flextronics computer manufacturing facility in Austin, Texas, where Apple’s Mac Pros are assembled, Nov. 20, 2019.
Mandel Ngan | AFP | Getty Images
President Donald Trump said in a social media post Friday that Apple will have to pay a tariff of 25% or more for iPhones made outside the United States.
“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. If that is not the case, a Tariff of at least 25% must be paid by Apple to the U.S.,” Trump said on Truth Social.
Shares of Apple fell 3% on Friday after the post.
Apple’s flagship phone is produced primarily in China, but the company has been shifting manufacturing to India in part because that country has a friendlier trade relationship with the U.S.
Some Wall Street analysts have estimated that moving iPhone production to the U.S. would raise the price of the Apple smartphone by at least 25%. Wedbush’s Dan Ives put the estimated cost of a U.S. iPhone at $3,500. The iPhone 16 Pro currently retails for about $1,000.
Trump told reporters Friday afternoon that the tariff would also apply to other smartphone manufacturers, such as Samsung, and would start at the end of June.
“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.
This is the latest jab at Apple from Trump, who over the past couple of weeks has ramped up pressure on the company and Cook to increase domestic manufacturing. Trump and Cook — Apple’s CEO — met at the White House on Tuesday, according to Politico.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in an interview with Fox News on Friday that he was not part of the meeting at the White House but that the Apple situation could be part of the Trump administration’s push to bring “precision manufacturing” back to the U.S.
“A large part of Apple’s components are in semiconductors. So we would like to have Apple help us make the semiconductor supply chain more secure,” Bessent said.
Cook gave $1 million to Trump’s inauguration fund and attended the inauguration in January. Apple has announced a $500 billion spend on U.S. development, including AI server production in Houston.
Apple declined to comment for this story.
The company said during its May 1 earnings report that it expects about $900 million in additional costs for tariffs in the current quarter. Cook said on the company’s earnings call that the tariff outlook was “very difficult to predict” past June.
Foxconn, one of Apple’s main iPhone assembly partners, is spending $1.5 billion on expanding its India facilities, the Financial Times reported Thursday.
Trump has publicly criticized other major U.S. companies, including Walmart, during his trade war push, but the levies on a specific consumer product is a new step. The exact legal mechanism for the tariff is unclear.
Trump followed up his post about Apple with another one calling for a 50% tariff on products from the European Union. Taken together, the posts point to trade tensions increasing again after the U.S. had temporarily lowered many of its levies, including in an agreement with China.
Apple also had to navigate tariff threats during Trump’s first term, when a 15% tariff on Chinese imports was being considered in 2019. At that time, Cook had a strong relationship with Trump and the final trade deal excluded core Apple products from the duties.
As Apple is caught in the U.S. president’s crosshairs, the company is also seeing weak demand in China. On Friday the company hiked trade-in incentives for iPhones in China.
