Apple Announces American Manufacturing Program
Apple (Hacker News):
Apple today announced a new $100 billion commitment to America, a significant acceleration of its U.S. investment that now totals $600 billion over the next four years. Today’s announcement includes the ambitious new American Manufacturing Program (AMP), dedicated to bringing even more of Apple’s supply chain and advanced manufacturing to the U.S. Through AMP, Apple will increase its investment across America and incentivize global companies to manufacture even more critical components in the United States.
[…]
Apple is working with its suppliers to accelerate manufacturing in the U.S. through the new American Manufacturing Program. The first AMP partners include Corning, Coherent, GlobalWafers America (GWA), Applied Materials, Texas Instruments (TI), Samsung, GlobalFoundries, Amkor, and Broadcom. This builds on Apple’s July commitment to buy American-made rare earth magnets from MP Materials.
[…]
With these new partnerships, Apple is leading the creation of an end-to-end silicon supply chain in the United States, with partners in every key aspect of silicon production.
This U.S. silicon supply chain is on track to produce more than 19 billion chips for Apple products in 2025. That includes TSMC in Arizona, which is producing tens of millions of chips for Apple using one of the most advanced process technologies in America.
Daniel Howley and Ben Werschkul:
Apple is further teaming up with Samsung to work on new chipmaking technologies at its plant in Austin, Texas, as well as with GlobalFoundries and Amkor to bring more chip manufacturing and packaging to the US, respectively.
Apple’s news comes after the Trump administration began pressuring the tech giant to manufacture its iPhone in the US, going so far as to threaten to impose a 25% tariff on the devices if the company didn’t comply.
Apple’s announcement also comes as the company prepares for a new 25% tariff on goods destined for the US from India. That’s in addition to an existing 25% levy Trump previously said he would apply to the country’s products.
Josh Boak and Michael Liedtke:
“We’ll be putting a tariff of approximately 100% on chips and semiconductors,” Trump said in the Oval Office while meeting with Apple CEO Tim Cook. “But if you’re building in the United States of America, there’s no charge.”
But smartphones are exempt from President Donald Trump’s new levies on India, marking a crucial win for the tech giant as it approaches its most important time of the year: its annual September iPhone launch followed by the holiday season. Apple will also dodge incoming new tariffs on semiconductors, since it’s committed to building iPhone components in the United States, Trump said Wednesday.
Andrea Shalal, Nandita Bose, and Arsheeya Bajwa:
Asked if Apple could eventually build entire iPhones in the U.S., Cook noted that many components such as semiconductors, glass and Face ID modules are already made domestically, but said that final assembly will remain overseas “for a while.”
While the investment pledge is significant, analysts say the numbers align with Apple’s typical spending patterns and echo commitments made during both the Biden administration and Trump’s previous term.
[…]
Apple has a mixed track record when it comes to following through on investment promises.
In 2019, for instance, Cook toured a Texas factory with Trump that was promoted as a new manufacturing site. But the facility had been producing Apple computers since 2013 and Apple has since moved that production to Thailand.
At a White House press conference to discuss Apple’s new US manufacturing plans, CEO Tim Cook presented a gift to President Donald Trump: a “unique” piece of glass from iPhone glass manufacturer Corning that’s set in a 24-karat gold base.
The piece of glass is a large disc with the Apple logo cut into it. On the top of the glass, President Trump’s name is printed. On the bottom, there’s a signature that appears to be Cook’s as well as the message “Made in USA” and the year 2025. The glass was designed by a “former US Marine Corps corporal” who works at Apple, according to Cook.
Symbolically, it looks like Cook just caved, as he has with China, while Apple instead fights and maliciously complies with orders from courts in the EU, the US, and around the world. But it seems like he basically offered a sweet solution: investments that may have already been planned and may not end up happening, semiconductors (but not flagship processors), glass, and Face ID sensors. Building iPhones in the US this is not, and he’s not trying very hard to pretend that that will ever actually happen. Instead, look at the shiny object.
Previously:
- Apple in China
- Making Apple S9 and A16 in Arizona
- Pat Gelsinger Out at Intel
- Intel Foundry
- AMD vs. Intel
- A Very Sweet Solution
11 Comments RSS · Twitter · Mastodon
Seriously, look at the shiny object. That's the point. They finally figured out what works with him.
Yes, symbolically it doesn't look great but financially neither did their stock with all these punitive tariffs.
Yes, everyone is going to, probably mostly rightly, crap all over this.
But they've made extremely similar promises before to no effect. So they took the Achievement in the Field of Excellence approach.
Sorry, it's Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Excellence. And it appears to have worked just as well.
Tim Cook should be embarrassed, but also, everyone who said he made a fool of the President here also has a point. Either way, that video is a tentpole of Tim's legacy now.
Tim Cook caves for authoritarians and fights Democratically elected public servants to the death. Their products are getting worse. Their software is a mess.
This isn't a good company worth supporting with our money anymore. I'm buying used from now on and I hope more people will join me. I'm going to get my stuff off iCloud and cancel it. Eventually I'll probably have to move to Linux. It'll be worth it to stop supporting these evil cowards
I want to signal-boost bart’s comment.
One of Tim Cook’s jobs is kissing the rears of heads of state and/or government to do what’s best for Apple.
He does this thing all the time with Xi and likely also Modi; he can do it with Trump, too.
AFAICT Tim Cook has all the incentives to get manufacturing out of China and also India; he just can’t get the reliability there yet because getting a factory up and running and not producing duds at unacceptably high rates is hard and takes time. So he hands Trump a very fancy paperweight that tries to artfully blend Apple’s current aesthetic (glass) with Trump’s (gold).
I’m not sure why most of the Mac glitterati is calling this “capitulation” and getting mad at Tim Cook; it looks like a superficial gesture made at a guy who cares about the superficial.
@scineram I think the reference was to the EU and other many other Western countries that fight Apple and Google's duopoly market distortion.
Kissing the ring of authoritarian leaders in the US and China, while fighting less/non-authoritarian governments nail and tooth is not a good look.
Of course, this is not going to change much. I grew up in a country that was occupied by nazi Germany, over 100,000 jews were deported. The lessons of WOII were engraved in us from young age. As kids we could never understand why (almost) nobody did anything. Seeing something similar happen in my lifetime [1], I now understand. Everyone is simply trying to save their own skin, corporations bow to the dictator to save their business/profits, citizens bow to save their lifestyles. Everyone is going to write some nasty tweets, but will run to buy a new iPhone in October.
[1] Of course, it's not the same thing yet, but there are many parallels with 1933 Germany. Deportations, anti-intellectual sentiment, etc.
I'm surprised by how hard this hit me. It would be one thing to build the plant and flatter President Trump and shake some hands.
But seeing Tim Cook hand over a lump of gold, infront of cameras, and set it up on trumps desk. And do the little "We have strong men working for us. Ex military even!" speech.
Hopefully we'll NOT get to see the Apple enabler industrial complex try to spin this. So far they seem shocked into silence.
XO≈
So you got nothing, huh? Well the President is an elected leader, unlike any authoritarian eurocomissar.
"Well the President is an elected leader, unlike any authoritarian eurocomissar."
They're both elected in the same way; in both cases, people vote for people who eventually elect the person in authority.
"Seeing something similar happen in my lifetime, I now understand"
I had the same epiphany. As a young adult, I read "Hitler's Willing Executioners," and Goldhagen's assertion that there was something in Germany's history and culture that made it uniquely vulnerable to a fascist takeover always struck me as somewhat implausible. Now we see it with our own eyes. It's just a bunch of people looking out for their own interests.
"it seems like he basically offered a sweet solution"
It's the same thing that's already happening with Stargate: what Trump cares about it the announcement, not the follow-through. So it's very cheap for a company like Apple to go up on stage with him and hype him up, and then do the bare minimum in case anyone ever checks back.
