Trump Announces Additional $100 Billion Apple Investment in U.S.

The White House said the pledge would bring more of the company’s supply chain and advanced manufacturing to the United States.

President Trump and Tim Cook, Apple’s chief executive, announced on Wednesday that Apple would devote $100 billion to additional investment in the United States, the company’s latest move to buy more components from U.S. suppliers and avoid the president’s threat of tariffs on iPhones.

The announcement, in the gold-adorned Oval Office, came after Mr. Cook presented Mr. Trump with a 24-karat gold gift and lavished him with praise. Mr. Cook highlighted the creation of Apple’s American Manufacturing Program, focused on bringing more of the company’s supply chain and advanced manufacturing to the United States.

The president “asked us to think about what more we could commit to doing,” Mr. Cook said at the White House, “and Mr. President, we took that challenge very seriously.”

Since Mr. Trump retook office, Mr. Cook has appeared to walk a careful line in satisfying some of the president’s wishes, if not the largest ones. Despite a threat from Trump in May of a 25 percent tariff on smartphones, he has not fulfilled the president’s demand to make iPhones in the United States.

Apple said earlier this year that it planned to spend $500 billion and hire 20,000 people in the United States over the next four years and open a factory in Texas to make the machines that power its push into artificial intelligence. Apple made similar, smaller pledges during the Biden administration and Mr. Trump’s first term, though it has yet to follow through on some of them.

In the Oval Office on Wednesday, Mr. Cook said that Apple was supporting an “end-to-end semiconductor supply chain” by working with companies like Broadcom, Amkor and others. “We’ve already signed new agreements with 10 companies across America,” he said. Mr. Cook added that Apple committed to being Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company’s “first and largest customer” in Arizona. The company’s suppliers are on track to make 19 billion chips in the United States.

Mr. Trump underscored Apple’s investments with an ultimatum to other companies, saying he planned to impose a 100 percent tariff on foreign semiconductors unless they also committed to increasing manufacturing in America.

“If you’re building, there will be no charge,” Mr. Trump said.

Mr. Cook also announced that Apple would soon rely on glass made in Kentucky from Corning for two of its best-selling products.

“For the first time ever, every single new iPhone and every single new Apple Watch sold anywhere in the world will contain cover glass made in Kentucky,” he said.

The products themselves will not be made in America, however.

“The end game here is mostly about getting good with the administration on tariffs,” said Gene Munster, a managing partner at Deepwater Asset Management. “I don’t see Apple coming back another six months from now with another $50 billion. This should be enough.”

Despite a decade of pressure from Mr. Trump to start “building their damn computers and things in this country,” Apple has continued to make most of what it sells — iPhones, iPads and Macs — in Asia. China has been the company’s primary manufacturing base since the 2000s. It has shifted some production to Vietnam, Thailand and India in recent years, but it has not invested to build a a major product in the United States.

Apple says it supports more than 450,000 American jobs with thousands of suppliers and partners across 50 states. It relies on more than three million workers across its supply network in China and has recently been expanding production in India, which has angered the president.

Apple has sidestepped Mr. Trump’s ultimatums about its manufacturing because of the difficulties and costs of moving its supply chain. A company analysis found that the United States has fewer manufacturing engineers than China and India and a smaller pool of workers with the skills necessary to assemble an iPhone. Investing to develop that work force would force the company to more than double iPhone prices to $2,000 or more, said Wayne Lam, an analyst with TechInsights, a market research firm.

During a speech in May in Saudi Arabia, Mr. Trump praised Jensen Huang, the chief executive of Nvidia, for traveling with the White House delegation. Mr. Cook declined to attend the trip.

“I mean, Tim Cook isn’t here, but you are,” Mr. Trump said to Mr. Huang.

Later, in Qatar, Mr. Trump said he “had a little problem with Tim Cook.” The president praised Apple’s investment in the United States, then said he had told Mr. Cook: “But now I hear you’re building all over India. I don’t want you building in India.”

In the face of Mr. Trump’s efforts to reshape global trade through tariffs, Apple has tried to reduce its exposure to levies on products it makes abroad, including by moving production from one country to another, though the constantly shifting tariff landscape makes that extraordinarily challenging.

Apple has a mixed record on fulfilling its investment promises. In 2018, the company pledged to invest $350 billion in the United States, and Mr. Cook said it would build a new campus in a new state, but it has not yet done so. A year later, Mr. Cook toured a Texas factory with Mr. Trump that was billed as a new manufacturing plant. But the plant had been making Apple computers since 2013, and the company has since shifted production from that facility to Thailand.

The company’s previous investment promises mostly involved money it already planned to spend in the United States, Mr. Munster said. Only about $39 billion of the $500 billion announced in February was new, with the rest being in line with the company’s average annual increase in U.S. investment to support its growth since 2017.

“Apple thought they gave the right dosage with $500 billion in February, but this $100 billion is a measurable increase,” Mr. Munster said. He added that the administration wanted to create a more independent supply for the tech industry, “and that’s a decade-long initiative.”

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