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Trump Says He'd Make Apple Build Computers In the US (businessinsider.com)
mrspoonsi writes with Business Insider's report that presidential candidate Donald Trump says he'd like to make Apple "start building their damn computers and things in this country instead of other countries."
From the article: Trump's ultimatum to the most valuable company in the world was made towards the end of a 45-minute speech he gave at Liberty University in Virginia on Monday. The most popular candidate in the Republican party said he would impose a 35% business tax on American businesses manufacturing outside of the United States. Apple has manufactured its Mac Pro at a factory in Texas since 2013, but the vast majority of its products (including the iPhone) are largely made and assembled in China. How Trump would force Apple's supply chain, which relies heavily on a vast network of suppliers and large factories throughout Asia, to be brought stateside remains unknown. Apple CEO Tim Cook recently called the U.S. tax code "awful for America." If Trump (or anyone) thinks this is a good idea, why start or stop with Apple?
He is not actually going to build that wall on the Mexican border, and whatnot.
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For someone who claims to not be a politician, Trump is very good as politician-speak - the art of telling people you'll do things with no intentions/plans/ability to follow through on it.
Also, I thought Republicans didn't like the government interfering in business? Wouldn't forcing a company to redo its entire operations just to keep everything in America fall under government interference? How long until people realize that President Trump won't be able to do half the things he claims he'll do?
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It's obvious: because it's such a well-known and popular brand, and because it was recently under attack for treating Chinese workers poorly.
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How Trump would force Apple's supply chain, which relies heavily on a vast network of suppliers and large factories throughout Asia, to be brought stateside remains unknown
How about TFS be consistent with itself? It isn't unknown, it's by taxing them:
The most popular candidate in the Republican party said he would impose a 35% business tax on American businesses manufacturing outside of the United States.
As in how many would we have to back out of to do this?
No sir I dont like it.
Trump said he would 'get' Apple to make their products in America, not 'make' Apple. There's a difference. He's not going to force Apple to come to America but convince them. He's going to improve the business tax codes which Tim Cooke has said is a driving force for Apple to make their products overseas. Trump's statement is not so outlandish as some world make it to be.
Here's what he actually said...
"We have such amazing people in this country: smart, sharp, energetic, they're amazing," Trump said. "I was saying make America great again, and I actually think we can say now, and I really believe this, we're gonna get things coming... we're gonna get Apple to start building their damn computers and things in this country, instead of in other countries."
Donald Trump says he'd like to make Apple "start building their damn computers and things in this country instead of other countries."
He can like whatever he wants but it's not possible for a lot of reasons.
1) Labor costs are too high in the US to be competitive on assembly work of that scale. I know this because I run a company that does contract assembly of electric products. Even Apple's profit margins aren't fat enough to make that possible.
2) The supply chain for all the components does not exist in the US. That business left the US a looong time ago.
3) Apple is actually a software company. If you put Android on their gear, nobody is going to pay a premium for it. The margins on their product are decidedly not in building the computer and Apple has no particular manufacturing expertise.
4) Apple doesn't build their computers. They hire other companies to do it. Same with Dell, HP, etc. The companies that actually build these things aren't US companies.
5) The president doesn't have the authority to do that and even if he did it would be a REALLY stupid idea. The only thing he would accomplish is to make it difficult for those companies to compete. Samsung isn't going to start building their machines in the US. Manufacturing goes where the costs are lowest and frequently that is not in the US thanks to high labor costs and in some cases regulations.
If Trump (or anyone) thinks this is a good idea, why start or stop with Apple?
It isn't a good idea and Trump is pandering. He knows perfectly well that it isn't possible, practical or a good idea. But he's more than happy to lie to people too dumb or ignorant to understand supply chain economics.
Apple will be assembling productsin the US within 10 yrs, using robotics, but it won't help employment rates because it will all be robotics based.
When Trump starts making his own crap in the US, maybe he can be taken seriously on the issue.
provides the logic most often used to justify offshoring and "free" international trade. However, the theory (logical as it is) is founded on a number of premises. A number of these premises held centuries ago but not so much any more. There is, notably, the premise that "factors of production" (e.g., factories and resources) cannot easily be moved. And money and credit were supposedly not conjurable at whim from nothing but government dictat. GIGO, even if the machine can run for some time on garbage and momentum.
Its effectively a disguised import tariff and the US has gone to a lot of trouble to get "free trade" agreements with many countries, or alternatively deals with minimal customs duties. He'll end up with the regulatory bodies saying that this form of tax is illegal under the agreements and the USA would have to pay a lot of compensation
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>> Why start with Apple?
I listen to Rush Limbaugh's show every couple of weeks and I know he's currently hawking at least two products: Donald Trump and Apple technology. By focusing on one of Rush's biggest advertisers (Apple), maybe Trump ensures he dominates Rush's show (as Rush tries to thread the needle between defending Apple and not trashing Trump) for a few more days?
(I don't think the effect of Rush's power in the primary polls can be underestimated. When he was hawking Scott Walker, Walker led in the polls. When he stopped hawking Walker, the guy dropped down to something like 1% support.)
This seems like evidence that Trump doesn't really understand macro-economics. The reason why manufacturing of consumer goods was shipped overseas is because it was discovered that we couldn't afford the consumer goods as well at higher prices to pay American workers to make the goods. Thus, we moved the manufacturing overseas to bring down the price point to something more palatable to the typical American consumer. There is a far more complex economic issue going on here. We need to peel back the layers of the onion and find out answers to some real questions:
All of these are inter-related. There are better presidential candidates to get into these details than Trump and probably less biased.
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This is practically boring by Trump standards. It's not even insane- it's protectionism. This has a long history, and in some industries is generally tolerated or even desired (by more than just fringe groups), in some amount. What Trump is describing isn't of the normal sort, of course- it's extreme and would cause havok in a number of industries.
Like much of Trump's rhetoric, it assumes powers that presidents don't have. Trump presumably knows this, and is undeterred, because he wants to be elected, and his track is populist screed, so off he goes.
The only thing he says on this that has some merit is his brief rant about Boeing. A Boeing plant will give China access to seriously new tools and methods that they currently haven't been able to copy from the shortsighted companies that make factories in China and have them duplicated by a Chinese company a few years later. I don't know if this is worth some federal action, however, and certainly a president isn't the one to make the call.
To answer the question, if you listen to Trump, he wouldn't stop with Apple, he'd go on a rampage of magically teleporting factories around and tossing out tariffs that are likely banned by treaty for decades.
It's not surprising for a populist to promise protectionism, and it's the least scary thing on his agenda. Destroying a few dozen industries is nothing compared to what he's promised internationally or for civil rights lol
Our government should encourage Foxconn to build a plant in the US. That way Apple, Microsoft and other US company products can be built in the US. A tax break for all companies manufacturing in the US for North American, and other, distribution would go a long way.
I think the trick to this is getting both sides to really do their part, meaning I'll lower the tax rate but we have to close these other loopholes. Lowering the rate is the easy part since that's what people cheer. Closing loopholes always gets angry responses from whoever just lost a loophole. That's why loopholes tend to stay put or, if closed, are matched by a new loophole. It's not unlike amnesty programs for illegal aliens. I think a lot of people would be fine letting them stay in exchange for no more illegal immigration. Reagan tried that back in 1986 and gave amnesty in exchange for tougher border controls to stop the flow. The amnesty happened but of course millions more illegals came. Getting both sides to follow through is the hard part. A simpler tax process would also increase transparency, which in general is a good thing.
What is interesting about a potential Bloomberg run is that it might split both parties votes. While Bloomberg has deal breaker positions on abortion, gun rights, size of government and others for many conservatives, the big business/military industrial complex/donner class likes him. That isn't a huge number of conservative/GOP voters but its a big slice of the GOP money pie.
If Bloomberg runs than essentially the election become entirely unpredictable. There will be no modern examples to compare the situation to even remotely.
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Yes and every of those companies skew their annual/quarterly reports of profits and reallocate a good portion of those recorded profits from the U.S. and say they got it from Europe or Asia where the corporate tax is a lot less.
What are you talking about? The main complaint about Apple is that they didn't "repatriate" their profit overseas. To be absolutely clear on this: Apple makes money by selling products overseas. These days more and more money is being made in Asia as markets there get bigger. Apple didn't "skew" the books as you imply. Now Apple (like every other company) has two choices when it comes to this money: 1) keep it overseas or 2) repatriate it by moving it back to the US. To do #2, they have to pay 40% taxes. So like MANY OTHER companies, they decided not to repatriate money made overseas and not pay taxes they don't have to pay. Considering that Apple (like other companies) have expenses like buildings, personnel, etc to fund, keeping it overseas is just business. But thanks for proving my point.
So what you said about establishing a small HQ for the area to deal with local formalities better is correct; but the main headline is about taxes.
Again, Apple bases their subsidiaries based on where it gives them the most tax advantages. So you missed the point.
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Trump is the first truly populist presidential candidate in a long time. But there's a long rich history of chest thumpers willing to say anything to get elected.
The best recent example in modern times is probably Hugo Chavez in Venezuela.
Unfortunately, the only thing in the Senate Ted Cruz is the head of, is the Senate Subcommittee on Space and Science (NASA).
And when Cruz runs up against someone reasonably intelligent, it clearly shows. In this hearing before the Senate Subcommittee, watch as Cruz tries to subtly make his point that NASA was spending too much money on climate change. NASA Administrator Charles Bolden tactfully makes a fool of Cruz by pointing out some key points: 1) He doesn't know what numbers Cruz is talking about because they are not the official budget numbers (Cruz is a liar) and 2) the decrease in space exploration was directed by Congress to NASA to spend less (Cruz is a hypocrite).
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