[WASHINGTON] US President Donald Trump said that the tariffs he threatened against Apple earlier on Friday (May 23) would also be aimed at a wider range of device makers, including Samsung Electronics, to spur them into moving manufacturing of their products to the US.
“It would be more,” Trump said when asked at the White House whether his tariff threat would only apply to Apple. “It would be also Samsung and anybody that makes that product, otherwise it wouldn’t be fair.” Trump indicated that the import levies would be “appropriately done” and ready for implementation by the end of June but provided no other details.
The president’s remarks clarified his social media post from earlier in the day warning that Apple would face tariffs of 25 per cent if the company failed to shift production of its iconic iPhone to the US from overseas. The warning came days after a Tuesday meeting between Trump and Apple chief executive officer Tim Cook at the White House, a US official said.
“He said he’s going to India to build plants. I said, that’s OK to go to India, but you are not going to sell into here without tariffs, and that’s the way it is,” Trump said.
Apple’s stock fell 3 per cent in New York trading. Separately on Friday, Trump also threatened a 50 per cent tariff on the European Union that would go into effect Jun 1, which weighed on the broader market.
Trump’s demand for US-based manufacturing pose a stark challenge to Apple and South Korea-based Samsung, whose supply chains for their devices have been concentrated in Asia for years. The US lacks the rich ecosystem of suppliers, manufacturing and engineering know-how that – for now – can only be found in the region.
BT in your inbox
Start and end each day with the latest news stories and analyses delivered straight to your inbox.
Representatives from Apple did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Samsung and Alphabet, whose Android software runs Samsung mobile devices, declined to comment.
Trump’s warning on Friday took shape after Apple signalled earlier this month that new tariffs would bring as much as US$900 million in higher costs in the current quarter. To limit the impact of import levies on goods made in China, Apple had already planned to transfer the bulk of its US-bound iPhone production to facilities in India – a move that had drawn increasing Trump ire.
Last week, during his trip to the Middle East, Trump said he had asked Cook to stop building plants in India to make devices for the US, pushing the iPhone maker to add domestic production as it pivots away from China.
“I had a little problem with Tim Cook yesterday,” Trump said of his conversation. “He is building all over India. I don’t want you building in India.”
Apple said earlier this year that it plans to spend US$500 billion in the US over the next four years, which will include work on a new server manufacturing facility in Houston, a supplier academy in Michigan and additional spending with its existing suppliers in the country.
But that stops short of the full shift to US-based production envisioned by Trump. Moving manufacturing of its signature iPhone and other devices to the US would be an enormous and expensive undertaking for Cupertino, California-based Apple. During his remarks on Friday, Trump warned companies against passing costs of tariffs to their customers.
“I don’t want the consumer to pay,” he told reporters in the Oval Office.
Smartphones, computers and many other electronics have been exempted for now from the so-called reciprocal tariffs that Trump imposed on goods from virtually every US trading partner. Yet that exception may be short-lived, as the Trump administration considers sector-wide tariffs on semiconductors that could affect a broad range of devices.
Timing for chips-related levies remains fluid and it’s unclear whether Trump was referring specifically on Friday to those deliberations.
“This is a clear negative,” KeyBanc Capital Markets analyst Brandon Nispel said in a note. “For Apple, it seems as if it must now raise prices on iPhones, which will likely occur with the launch of the iPhone 17. However, in the near term, it likely implies a more significant gross margin impact.”
The change threatens to cut Apple’s gross margin by 3 to 3.5 percentage points in fiscal 2026, according to Bloomberg Intelligence. But moving iPhone production to the US would likely still be far more costly than paying the tariff. And analysts have estimated that US-made phones would ultimately cost consumers thousands of US dollars apiece. BLOOMBERG
