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Trump Says Apple's Tim Cook Has Promised Him He'd Build Three US Factories: 'Big, Big, Big' (cnbc.com)

Posted by msmash on from the major-development dept.

President Donald Trump said Tuesday that Apple CEO Tim Cook has committed to build three big manufacturing plants in the U.S., a surprising statement that would help fulfill his administration's economic goal of reviving American manufacturing. From a report: Apple CEO Tim Cook called Trump to share that the iPhone-maker would do more manufacturing domestically, Trump told WSJ. "I spoke to [Mr. Cook], he's promised me three big plants -- big, big, big," Trump was quoted as saying. Apple has already said that it would start a $1 billion fund to promote advanced manufacturing jobs in the United States. With its wide network of developers, Apple has already created two million jobs in the United States, according to Cook.

40 of 187 comments (clear)

  1. grain of salt by gravewax · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "Apple has already created two million jobs in the United States, according to Cook", and that just proves Cook is full of shit. If they are 3 plants like the 2 million jobs those plants will include the truck manufacturer that builds the trucks that deliver the phones to the stores, the ship builder that provides the transport from china and the building material manufacturers for their shiters.

    1. Re:grain of salt by Goose+In+Orbit · · Score: 5, Funny

      ...and not one coal miner...

    2. Re:grain of salt by jellomizer · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Well it was their fault making fun of the nerds in middle school.

      You piss me off, I automate your job away.

      --
      If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    3. Re:grain of salt by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 5, Insightful

      All higher-profile entities make these sorts of claims. Large companies like Apple or Boeing or Walmart; sports franchises; even public universities like the one which employs me - they all claim that their presence in a local economy adds tens of thousands of ancillary jobs and introduces millions or billions of additional dollars into the local and/or regional economy. Usually when they do it, they're lobbying for tax breaks ("we'll build our new factory here if")... but it is also perfect fodder for politicians.

      In my local (Puget Sound) area: Given the number of Seattle-area jobs, direct or ancillary, which are claimed to be due to the mere presence of Boeing, Amazon, U of W, etc. - I guess we're each unknowingly working full time at four or five places and spending hundreds of thousands of dollars every year. That's the only way the numbers could possibly work..

      --
      #DeleteChrome
    4. Re:grain of salt by GLMDesigns · · Score: 3, Informative

      Does tech require steel? And how does one make steel? mmmm with coal.

      --
      If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
      Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
    5. Re:grain of salt by Captain+Splendid · · Score: 4, Insightful

      And how does one make steel?

      One does it in China, so that the environmental problems aren't yours to deal with.

      --
      Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
    6. Re:grain of salt by SpammersAreScum · · Score: 3, Insightful

      How true. Fortunately, China's air and water never crosses its borders. Oh, and any government or civil unrest caused by such problems never will either. (Ok, maybe there's an implied /s in your post just as there is one in mine.)

    7. Re:grain of salt by fahrbot-bot · · Score: 4, Funny

      ...and not one coal miner...

      That may change when Apple releases the iPhone 10 Steam Punk Edition, which will actually run on coal.

      --
      It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
    8. Re:grain of salt by Zaelath · · Score: 2

      70% according to the coal lobby https://www.worldcoal.org/coal...

      And even if you total "all other industrial" use of coal other than power, that's only 15% of the total coal being used in the US: https://www.eia.gov/totalenerg...

      The other 85% was to produce 1/3 of US power, and that use is on the slide.

      If you lose the power production, it won't even be economically viable to mine the 15%, it would be cheaper to buy it in from China.

    9. Re:grain of salt by supremebob · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Unfortunately, most of the jobs that Apple actually "created" in the US recently are low paying retail and support jobs at their Apple Store locations. The number of new hardware and software Engineers that Apple hired are probably a small percentage of the real number.

    10. Re:grain of salt by pointybits · · Score: 3, Informative

      This figure is itemised on the Apple site. Basically they're claiming every job that touches Apple in some way, e.g. the workers at Caterpillar that make the generators used in Apple's data centers. 1.5 million of them are "jobs created and supported by the App store", which is sourced from a report that uses a really broad definition of an App Economy worker and includes support workers and "spillover" jobs.

    11. Re:grain of salt by crunchygranola · · Score: 2

      This is a common tactic for industries and big businesses -- claiming anyone that has any contact with their product in any capacity other than as a simple consumer has a job "created" by them. The American Petroleum Institute claims that oil companies employ 9.5 million people but everyone in any retail business that has a gas pump or sells oil off the shelf is one of those people. By the same token the farm lobby counts anyone who deals with any agricultural product is employed by "farming". So if you work in a 7-11 you are employed both by the petroleum industry and the farm industry (since both types of products are sold), and if they add Apple iPhone cables to their inventory, they would be employed by Apple too!

      --
      Second class citizen of the New Gilded Age
    12. Re:grain of salt by arglebargle_xiv · · Score: 2

      "Apple has already created two million jobs in the United States, according to Cook", and that just proves Cook is full of shit.

      No, it proves that Trump is full of shit. This came from Trump, not Cook. We have to see what Cook actually said, not what Trump said he said, before we can comment on it.

    13. Re:grain of salt by Voyager529 · · Score: 2

      Unfortunately, most of the jobs that Apple actually "created" in the US recently are low paying retail and support jobs at their Apple Store locations. The number of new hardware and software Engineers that Apple hired are probably a small percentage of the real number.

      You say this like it's a bad thing. Apple has its problems, but they do tend to pay measurably more than minimum wage. The non-engineers of the world need jobs as well, and "get a STEM degree" is unlikely to be a viable course of action for the overwhelming majority of them for no shortage of reasons. If Apple can provide gainful employment for those who don't have a master's degree in electrical engineering, and do so while keeping their customer satisfaction levels high and their profits up, then I fail to see who loses in that scenario.

    14. Re: grain of salt by PoopJuggler · · Score: 2

      Which taxes has Apple not paid that they are legally required to? Specifically.

    15. Re:grain of salt by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      And destroy the country...so you can become a billionaire who thinks slavery is flexible factory workers and has no idea what the difference is.

      Why should he/she care?

      You bullied then and are getting payback now.

      He/she was bullied then and is getting revenge now.

      Plus, getting rich at the expense of others is the very definition of success in the good old US, isn't it?

      Payback is a bitch, and so are you.

      Suck it up.

      (I am only partly joking. I leave is as an exercise for you to figure out which part it is. You will likely fail.)

    16. Re:grain of salt by lisaparratt · · Score: 2

      Other than epicaricacy, you mean?

  2. All 100% automated. by jellomizer · · Score: 4, Insightful

    All these plants would be in 100% automated in States and Cities where they will be Tax exempt, which will be making B2B products so there is no sales tax.

    --
    If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
  3. And in unrelated news by Arkham · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Trump is a fucking liar, so nothing he says can be taken as having anything to do with the truth.

    --
    - Vincit qui patitur.
    1. Re:And in unrelated news by sit1963nz · · Score: 2

      Maybe Apple is going to get into the t-shirt business so Trump can fill the shops in his golf courses and hotels with stuff made in the USA instead of China.

      The shirts will come in
      Trump hands, small, regular , big, bigly, biglier, and bigliest

  4. How about bringing in the off shore cash pile? by mykepredko · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Saying that you're going to make a "big" factory doesn't mean anything as it will be years of site selection, environmental impact reports, etc.

    If Mr. Cook wanted Apple to show that they cared about the countries they do business in as well as make an immediate impact, they would stop offshoring their profits and pay taxes on them in the country they made the money.

    --
    Mimetics Inc. Twitter
    1. Re:How about bringing in the off shore cash pile? by MightyMartian · · Score: 5, Informative

      Not to mention that the factory will be heavily automated, meaning the number of jobs that it actually provides will be relatively insignificant. Trump made a lot of promises to blue collar workers that the march of technology render unkeepable. Even if somehow magically coal recovers, the number of people employed would be a fraction of the number employed a quarter century ago, and of course, coal isn't coming back, so it's really an academic question.

      It would be nice if a political candidate would go to a town hall meeting in the Rust Belt or in coal country and say "Look, I sympathize with you, and the loss of your jobs to other countries is a sad, but inevitable consequence of the changes of manufacturing that have occurred over the last thirty years. The fact is that even if new factories/mines are built tomorrow, the overwhelming majority of you will not be rehired, and it is likely that many of you who are currently employed will lose your jobs, or, at best, will retire and those positions deemed redundant. It's time to move on from a 20th century economy, and I commit to bringing economic development into your region, into job retraining, and making your lives more affordable."

      But no, all these regions get is a lot of blowhards shouting how somehow they have the magic power to turn back time (and it isn't just the Republicans).

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    2. Re:How about bringing in the off shore cash pile? by Luthair · · Score: 2

      No, the way it works is they sell an offshore subsidiary their IP then their US corp pays royalties on the IP they license from the offshore subsidiary wiping out their profits in the US.

      One version of that scheme is Double Irish with a Dutch Sandwich

    3. Re:How about bringing in the off shore cash pile? by precisenz · · Score: 2

      Just how many iPhones do you think Ireland buys?!. Apple (and Google and Microsoft and every other large tech company... ) pay minimal tax in the countries they sell their products, via a series of tax setups & company structures that allow them to take the profits out of the country the money is made before it is considered "profit", to a country where less tax has to be paid. This isn't new - global corporations have been doing forever. Whats changed is that software & IP is a lot more valuable and easy to shift over borders & the numbers are now staggering so it gets noticed.

    4. Re:How about bringing in the off shore cash pile? by Areyoukiddingme · · Score: 3, Insightful

      If Mr. Cook wanted Apple to show that they cared about the countries they do business in as well as make an immediate impact, they would stop offshoring their profits and pay taxes on them in the country they made the money.

      This is Apple playing Trump. "Let us repatriate our hoarded cash for 0.01% tax and we'll build three factories in the US. Big big big! Pinky swear!" They get their money back into the States, having successfully robbed the US taxpayer, then drag their feet on the factories for three years until Trump is out of office, whereupon they shitcan the project. And Trump won't even notice, because Fox and Friends won't report it.

    5. Re:How about bringing in the off shore cash pile? by imgod2u · · Score: 4, Interesting

      "So for example, I'm the only candidate which has a policy about how to bring economic opportunity using clean renewable energy as the key into coal country. Because we're going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business, right?

      And we're going to make it clear that we don't want to forget those people. Those people labored in those mines for generations, losing their health, often losing their lives to turn on our lights and power our factories.

      Now we've got to move away from coal and all the other fossil fuels, but I don't want to move away from the people who did the best they could to produce the energy that we relied on."

      We had one. She lost.

    6. Re:How about bringing in the off shore cash pile? by l0n3s0m3phr34k · · Score: 2

      A corp's primary goal is profit. Your idea would just become a "race to the bottom" going all the way to "zero corporate taxes", and then into the negative with various tax breaks. There are already several corps that manage to pay no income tax in 2015.

    7. Re: How about bringing in the off shore cash pile? by PoopJuggler · · Score: 2

      Apple has not robbed the US, Congress has. Apple pays every bit of tax legally required of them. Blame Congress for the tax code that favors the rich (ie, themselves).

  5. 2 million jobs? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Right Timmy, time to go back to school and learn some basic number crunching.

    These plants, after construction and a temporary surge of a few 100 jobs during said construction, will employ maybe a couple dozen people across all their plants.

    GO TRUMP!!!! Clueless idiot

  6. Re:That sounds great but... by freeze128 · · Score: 2

    If the factories are made by Apple, then the buildings will have tractor beams to catch the falling workers.

  7. Trump is a child by linuxguy · · Score: 4, Informative

    Everything good. He deserves the credit. Everything bad. Obama's fault.

    "big big big"

    1. Re:Trump is a child by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 5, Funny

      What I love is how in every shot I've seen of him either walking to or from a helicopter, he claps his hands together as if his (not very) inner toddler is going "Yaaay, hewicoptah!"

      --
      systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
    2. Re:Trump is a child by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Don't forget Hillary. All politics aside, the "man" is just an overgrown man-child, who throws tantrums whenever he doesn't get his way, constantly whines about how unfair everything is, and is so convinced that he's a "winner" who succeeds at everything he does, nothing that goes wrong is ever his fault. It's either some mess he inherited from Obama, or Hillary is the real criminal everyone should be looking at, or the Republicans in Congress who are not doing enough. Whatever it is, there's always some kind of external force at work, it's never him.

      The really sad thing is the stories that come out about how the people who prepare the intelligence briefings -- very important stuff for a President -- have learned they need to find ways to put Trump's name into the briefing so he'll keep reading.

      Trump is someone who's had pretty much everything handed to him his whole life, and he seems to have had this idea in his head that the POTUS was some sort of autocrat a la Putin. Now that he's starting to learn the hard way that he can't just threaten to fire any member of Congress who doesn't go along with his agenda, like he could in the private world, he throws tantrums like a spoiled brat toddler.

    3. Re:Trump is a child by linuxguy · · Score: 2

      "Pretty sure it's Bush's fault. Worked for Obama, didn't it?"

      Do you remember Obama constantly acting like a vindictive child?

      Me neither.

  8. Tim did promise 3 plants. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    He really meant azaleas. Those things can get huge!

  9. Don't count your factories until they're built by interdyne · · Score: 2

    Trump has a way of jumping to conclusions, saying things out of context and lying. I'll be a lot more convinced this is happening when Apple says it is. They have economic incentive to build their heavier products here in the US like the Mac Pro and CTO iMacs. How many more heavy products that can and will build in the US, that remains to be seen.

  10. "Trump says..." Stopped reading there by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    To say that he has a... "casual acquaintance with truth and reality" is an understatement.

    If that gang of sociopaths tell you it's July and the sky is blue, begin to doubt the existence of seasons and colors.

  11. Caveat Emptor by WillAffleckUW · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Look, the guy has a track record of lying. Like 90-95 percent of the time.

    Best case scenario is 1/20th the jobs show up and 2/3 of the plants are in Mexico and Canada, and the American plant is actually located in a US Possession or Protectorate but not actually in the US itself.

    --
    -- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
  12. Re:MS shut down Surface plant by l0n3s0m3phr34k · · Score: 2

    Per that logic, Europe must have no manufacturing at all, right? Because the average EU worker has 2x vacation and takes 300+ more hours off than the US.

  13. he's promised me three big plants by dcarmi · · Score: 2

    A couple of Aspidistras and a lovely Bamboo.