- calendar_today September 2, 2025
The statue, Cook said in a statement, was “custom-made” by Corning, a supplier that has been an Apple partner for more than a decade and makes specialty glass used in the iPhone. A former U.S. Marine Corps corporal now working at Apple designed it, cutting into a big circular pane of glass with the company’s familiar bold logo in the center. The statue, Cook said, came from Utah and included a 24-karat gold base with Trump’s name engraved on it. Cook added a personalized touch, signing the base with a message that read “Made in America.”
The gesture seemed to go over well with Trump, who has frequently told corporations to make more of their goods in the U.S. On Wednesday, the president, standing next to Cook and flanked by top Apple executives in the Oval Office, said Apple—and any other company that builds factories in the U.S.—would be assessed “no charge” when the tariff on semiconductors is put in place. “A wonderful group of Apple people is going to be starting new plants,” Trump said.
For Apple, the move is a significant reprieve. The company has spent months coming under direct pressure from Trump over its supply chain locations. But this week’s news reverses a tumultuous spring for Apple, which Trump has publicly chided repeatedly. For months, the president has berated Apple for failing to shift production of its iPhones into the U.S., and after the company began moving part of that production to India instead, Trump has targeted the company with attacks that have become more personal with time.
In April, the president promised “Made in America” iPhones, for instance, thanks to his trade policies. The following month, Trump was more blunt, admitting in the Middle East on a swing through the region that he had a “little problem with Tim Cook.” Trump later told Cook in private that “We are treating you really good, we put up with all the plants you built in China for years. We are not interested in you building in India.”
The idea that Apple could shift final assembly of the iPhone into the U.S. on any short-term basis has long been a dubious prospect for analysts. The complexity of Apple’s supply chain has made it a source of skepticism from analysts about how quickly it can all come together in the U.S., if it ever could happen at all. Trump’s administration hasn’t wavered, however, and in May pushed the idea even further, with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick teasing the use of “robotic arms” to recreate the same precision Apple uses in China inside U.S. factories.
On Wednesday, however, Trump seemed to have at least temporarily backed off from his demands after Cook appeared with him in the Oval Office. Rather than threaten Apple with a 25 percent tariff if it didn’t build iPhones in the U.S., Trump now praised Apple’s latest moves as “a significant step toward the ultimate goal of ensuring that iPhones sold in America also are made in America,” but has at least for now backed away from a hardline push for domestic manufacturing.
Cook has previously said that some components, including semiconductors, glass, and the Face ID sensor module, are already made in the U.S. But he has offered no specific timeline for when the rest of the work will be moved from overseas factories, and in his statement on Wednesday suggested that final assembly will “continue to be built overseas for a while.”
Apple has followed a playbook of symbolic moves and investment pledges before. In Trump’s first term, Cook successfully engaged with the president, agreeing to major investments in the U.S. while deflecting his harder-line demands. In 2017, Trump announced Apple’s plans to build three new “big, beautiful” plants in America. But only one of them would ultimately be built, and it would be used to make face masks instead of iPhones. In 2019, Apple sent Trump on a tour of a new Texas facility that the president claimed could be used to make iPhones. The facility was instead committed to producing MacBook Pros, leaving Trump without his U.S.-made iPhones.
Now, Apple says it will invest $600 billion in the U.S. over the next four years. Apple, in past statements and filings, has typically spent in the ballpark of that number, and Apple’s planned spending over the next four years, according to analysts cited by Reuters, appears to have been made during both the Biden and Trump administrations. In other words, it’s not clear Apple is going beyond the plan it was already on track to follow.
The president has warned that any company that doesn’t deliver on such a plan in a year could have tariffs retroactively applied. But as of now, Apple is sticking with its long-term investments, and continuing to assemble the iPhone outside of the U.S. Trump has so far chosen not to force that question—and Apple is free to continue business as usual for now.
Wall Street seems to think that’s a savvy decision. Tengler, CEO and CIO of Laffer Tengler Investments, a fund that owns Apple shares, told Reuters that Apple is “a savvy solution to the president’s demand that Apple manufacture all iPhones in the U.S.”
Cook, his personal touches, and Apple’s selective commitments have earned Trump more time in the trade war. And while Trump wants to talk “Made in America,” it seems likely that Apple is going to keep the most intricate parts of its manufacturing well beyond U.S. borders.
