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Apple responds to tariff threat with a $500 billion US investment

Apple has announced plans to invest more than $500 billion in the US over the next four years, including hiring 20,000 new employees and launching a new server factory in Texas. The announcement was teased after a meeting last week between CEO Tim Cook and President Donald Trump, and comes as the company tries to mitigate the business impact of Trump’s trade tariffs, with a 10 percent tariff already in effect on goods imported from China, and a 25 percent tariff threatened for chips.

The announcement echoes one Apple made in early 2018, during the first Trump administration. At that point Apple also promised 20,000 new jobs as part of a $350 billion spend in the US, alongside a new campus in Austin which is still under construction. The company successfully appealed for tariff exemptions for some of its products, and a new US investment may be a way to secure further protection from Trump’s new charges. Apple has not confirmed how many of the new investments were already planned before Trump took office.

The company announced a few concrete elements of the increased US spend. The most significant is a new factory in Houston, set to open next year, which will produce servers to power Apple Intelligence, the company’s suite of AI features. Apple says that this factory alone will “create thousands of jobs.”

In addition, Apple is doubling its $5 billion US Advanced Manufacturing Fund to $10 billion. Launched in 2017, the fund is intended to “support world-class innovation and high-skilled manufacturing jobs across America.” In this case, it means Apple making a multibillion-dollar order for chips from a TSMC factory in Arizona.

More generally, Apple says that over the term of the Trump administration it will hire 20,000 new employees, with the majority focused on “R&D, silicon engineering, software development, and AI and machine learning.” It will also open an Apple Manufacturing Academy in Detroit in which Apple engineers and other experts will offer consultations to local businesses on “implementing AI and smart manufacturing techniques,” along with free classes for workers.

“We are bullish on the future of American innovation, and we’re proud to build on our long-standing U.S. investments with this $500 billion commitment to our country’s future,” said Cook in a statement. “From doubling our Advanced Manufacturing Fund, to building advanced technology in Texas, we’re thrilled to expand our support for American manufacturing. And we’ll keep working with people and companies across this country to help write an extraordinary new chapter in the history of American innovation.”

Apple’s most recent announcement on US investment was a 2021 promise to spend $430 billion over the following five years, including a 3,000-employee campus in North Carolina, though development on that project has since paused.



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