Now that President Trump’s tariff list has been made public, and sent the tech industry into a frenzy, some may be wondering whether Apple will now move its manufacturing to the U.S. Industry insider Mark Gurman in his newsletter says that the company is very unlikely to ever do that or even be able to do it before Trump’s presidency ends.
The new tariffs will go into effect from April 9 and will impact every single region Apple has manufacturing hubs in. China — the company’s largest manufacturer of its products — has been hit the hardest with a mind-blowing tariff rate of 54 percent.
However other countries where Apple manufactures its products — like India, Vietnam, Brazil and Malaysia — are now also subject to heavy tariffs. The entire situation is very unfavorable for Apple and the company might even have to finally make the base iPhone models more expensive going forward.
All of this was done to encourage companies to move their production to the U.S. instead of continuing to rely on other countries. However, as Gurman points out, Apple is almost assuredly not going to do so.
The iPhone 16 is mostly manufactured in China. | Image credit — PhoneArena
For starters it is almost impossible for Apple to move all of its outsourced business to the U.S. in the next four years. The company will probably try to just bear the burden until the current presidency comes to an end.
If Apple were to shift everything to the U.S. it would be a colossal waste of its money as any positives would be null and void by the time the move was complete. It is a company in the end and it needs to prioritize profits to stay in business.
Lastly if Apple were to go about doing this then the prices of its products would skyrocket. Consumers would be pushed away and by the time the move ended and prices started going down customers would have switched to alternative products.
It’s really a lose-lose situation for Apple but not all is lost. There are multiple theoretical approaches possible for Apple to reduce the burden of tariffs. While it all seems dire I think a company as large as Apple will figure something out sooner or later.
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Abdullah loves smartphones, Virtual Reality, and audio gear. Though he covers a wide range of news his favorite is always when he gets to talk about the newest VR venture or when Apple sets the industry ablaze with another phenomenal release.
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