Apple vs. US government in iPhone production: “Tim Cook just doesn’t do it”

The US government continues to try to move Apple’s management to build up iPhone production in Germany. So far, the success is moderate. Peter Navarro, his character of the White House for Trade and Production, now criticized Apple CEO Tim Cook directly. In one interview With the US stock exchange station CNBC, he said that during the first Trump administration (until 2021), the Apple boss “asked for more time to move his factories from China”.

Silicon-Valley-soap opera Reshoring

The conflict of Apple’s shift in production is “the longest -running soap opera” in the whole Silicon Valley. “My problem is that Tim Cook never takes steps to really do it.” There are “new advanced manufacturing processes” and a lot is also in terms of AI, says Navarro. Accordingly, it is unimaginable for him that Tim Cook can produce his iPhones “not in this country”. But Apple defends itself home to attempts at reshoring.

In fact, Apple takes steps to deduct its factories from China – or to build more capacity outside the People’s Republic. But that does not happen in the USA, but in India or Vietnam. President Trump had openly criticized this, most recently the tariffs on goods from Vietnam had been significantly increased. Apple himself does not comment on a production shift on the iPhone.

Apple produced in the USA until Cook came

After the return of Steve Jobs to Apple in 1997, the group still had some factories in the United States. But little by little they were abandoned – first sold to finished and then completely closed. There was a billion -dollar production structure in China, behind which Tim Cook was in particular. His philosophy: If possible, do not keep an inventory, instead it is with finished workers like Foxconn. The strategy is now continued in India.

Apple had also raised factories for expensive products such as the Mac Pro in Texas that started the company. But compared to gigantic iPhone production, this is just a drop on the hot stone. Economists see it as almost unexpected to replicate the Chinese supply chain in the United States without strongly making prices. Apple currently sees no need. It is more likely to be expected that the group will pay the import tariffs that the Trump administration raises-balanced by price increases if necessary.