Trump on Friday threatened to put a 25 percent tariff on Apple products if the company failed to move more of its manufacturing back to the U.S., just weeks after publicly scolding Apple CEO Tim Cook over his firm’s reliance on Indian manufacturing.
This marks a sharp contrast from the more cordial relationship that Cook managed to maintain with Trump in his first term, when he scored a key tariff exemption.
“It puts Apple with their back against the wall a little because India was going to be the go-to to navigate the China tariffs,” Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives said, adding, “This is putting Apple in an almost impossible spot.”
Trump and Cook have long had a good rapport — a bright spot compared to the president’s often tense relationships with other tech leaders, like Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
This relationship paid dividends for Apple in Trump’s first term, when the president exempted electronics, including the company's smartphones, from his China tariffs at the time.
However, Cook seems to have run up against the limitations of this relationship in Trump’s second term, in which the president appears more committed to his tariff push.
“Undoubtedly this is a really difficult environment for Apple to be operating in,” said Leo Gebbie, an industry analyst with CSS Insight.
“I think the move to now start the threat of tariffs once again is quite symptomatic of the unpredictable nature of this U.S. administration,” he continued
Read more in a full report at TheHill.com this weekend.
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