On Monday, Apple revealed its plan to spend $500 billion on expanding its facilities in the United States over the next four years. This strategic move is intended to potentially shield the tech giant from facing additional tariffs on goods it imports from China.
Apple said the investment will create 20,000 jobs.
In response to President Donald Trump’s recent announcement of imposing 10% tariffs on all Chinese imports, Apple, who heavily relies on China for sourcing various products, especially iPhones, took action to avoid these new duties. Trump acknowledged on Friday that Apple’s decision to make such a significant investment came after a meeting with Apple’s CEO, Tim Cook, the day before, attributing this move directly to the impact of his tariffs.
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“He’s committing to investing hundreds of billions of dollars, I expect he’s made it public,” Trump stated. “That’s what he informed me … But he’s committing to investing hundreds of billions of dollars. And not just Apple, other technology companies, chip manufacturers, and automobile makers are also following suit.”
However Apple invested in growing its supply chain outside of China in recent years, partly in response to the problems with production China during the pandemic. Those investments include building a production facility for Mac Pro computers in Texas.
TSMC, which makes chips for Apple, is also set to open a chipmaking plant in Arizona, helped by $6.6 billion in support from a bipartisan bill passed during the Biden administration to encourage investment in US chip manufacturing. However, Apple has mostly expanded production in places like India and Vietnam.
“We are bullish on the future of American innovation, and we’re proud to build on our long-standing US investments with this $500 billion commitment to our country’s future,” said Cook in a statement from the company.
Trump thanked Cook and Apple for the announcement in an all-caps post on Truth Social early Monday, in which he took credit for the decision.
“The reason, faith in what we are doing, without witch (sic), they wouldn’t be investing ten cents,” he said.
Apple doesn’t do much of its own manufacturing, using contractors instead. It said it will work with thousands of manufacturing partners spread across all 50 states to produce more products in US facilities.
It said part of the investment it will create an academy in Detroit to train small- and medium-sized businesses on implementing AI and smart manufacturing techniques.
It said its partners will begin production of servers in Houston later this year that it said will that support Apple Intelligence, the company’s brand of artificial intelligence products. Apple said the 250,000-square-foot server manufacturing facility, slated to open in 2026, will create thousands of jobs. It said the servers, previously manufactured outside of the United States, are a core to its artificial intelligence efforts.
“The servers bring together years of R&D by Apple engineers,” it said in its statement.
Not all the $500 billion will go into production of computer hardware. It said it is expanding data center capacity in North Carolina, Iowa, Oregon, Arizona, and Nevada. It also includes plans to invest in corporate facilities and production of Apple TV+ shows in 20 states.
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