In less than a week, Apple has proved to be extremely vulnerable.
Its supply chain is under attack by tariff's.
Its flagship product is under attack by its former star employee.
Its AI is nowhere to be found.
Apple is under enormous pressure and let's see how M. Cook can address it.
There's a bunch of kids on this forum disliking everything they don't want to hear versus what they don't agree with. You are right, Apple is in a tough spot. Why would any adult user of this forum 'disagree' with a simple fact like this? No, instead they 'dislike' the comment because it's not the reality distortion field they feel comfortable with. That attitude feels very MAGA to me.
Oh no what would one of the richest most profile companies in the world do? How about stop using cheaper labor and move manufacturing back to the country that buys 40% of your products and oh wait makes 12% less profits.. I don't know how people are not pressuring companies like Apple to focus on the people instead of the profits.. I blame the Stockmarket. I t made us forget why we do what we do.
You clearly have zero knowledge of cost and supply chains. First, this transition will take more than 6-8 years to complete. Moving a very complex production chain to the US will take years, from building factories to overcoming regulations and hiring and retaining talent (which isn't even there!). Then, most of the parts and raw materials will have to be imported, oh no wait - tariffs...sourced from the US. Most of the raw materials aren't even there. Anyway, basically you end up with semi-empty factories because no one wants to do the work or labor is too expensive, a lack of raw materials and parts, and $5000 phones. You are clinging on a past that no longer exists and doesn't make any sense today.
A 25% tariff is actually the tariff rate since 2019 imposed by Trump.
And you wonder why everything costs so much since then????
Lol. iPhone pro max was 1099 in 2019. 1199 in 2024 under Biden.
Gas was 4.13in California state average in 2019. 4.87 in 2024.
The ford mustang GT was 35335 in 2019. 42495 in 2024.
Eggs were 1.46 a dozen. In 2024 that went to 4.15 under Biden.
Trump just got here.
Let him fight the hood fight to get things back on track. Apple building st home is s good thing. Free and fair trade is s good thing. The USA has been tariffed to desth. It’s about time America recoups some of that until those same countries drop their tarriffs. Any American company building up hostile nations by giving them huge investments and building their economies instead of their homeland should be ashamed.
This actually makes more sense before running it through a translator than when it becomes legible. It makes several points and assumptions, all of which are wrong.
Go ahead, apply the tariffs. It would be very unpopular. Paying more for your Apple products, blame Trump. Boycott his hotels. Pickett the White House. Complain to your Republican representatives. Apple losing market share...blame Trump.
Why is Trump hammering everyone with tariffs? Perhaps partly because he's almost 80 and he wants to be worshipped now, he doesn't have later.
What would Trump do as President if he didn't have the tariff hammer? He wasn't in anything close politics before the Presidency. He doesn't care about societal or environmental issues. It's not why he became President. Without tariffs, all he has is expensive gifts...bitcoins...making deals to open hotels and golf courses around the world....
None of this is about what Trump wants, obviously. American presidents need to appease the people/corporations behind them. For republicans, that means any conservative business sector that should have died out long ago.
I'm going to so be pissed and relieved when, in the near future, Trump "suspends" this one and the price of AAPL surges back. Pissed because the profit all his insider-trader cronies will make; relieved because I have so much invested in AAPL.
I wish I were so confident that his corruption outweighs his idiocy that I could afford to put my money where my mouth is (by acting like an insider trader knowing he's going to orchestrate a market boost for AAPL soon). Instead I'm just going to keep holding on and ride out the Trump chaos.
Make s sense. If cook said he was going to build at home snd thrn got some exemptions, but then gave indication of going back on his word, then the tarriffs would factor again.
Pretty sure if cook committee to doing SOMETHING in the usa soon, there would be no tarriffs.
Apple has escaped so far. And now they’re in tje hot seat. Hopefully they make the right decision and do something back home.
It’s a tough spot. But it’s also important to make the hard decisions today in order to secure a brighter tomorrow.
A brighter tomorrow is when we have a new president.
Of course, this goes way beyond prices for consumers and tariffs for international sparring. Supply lines on-shored and all the piles of subsidiary parts, designers, and assemblers that would sprout up - there could even be districts of consumer digital products' companies within various cities. I would work there for below minimum wage, 60 hours a week, as a high school or college co-op/ summer job. The local schools, JCs, and colleges would be collaborating with the various design, manufacturing, and industrial processes as part of their curriculum. What people don't realize is that bringing back the manufacturing sector is not about returning to your gramp's 1970s blue-collar smelly factories, but re-engaging with a mostly-automated but high-end process that requires great skill to design, construct, and maintain, albeit at 90% less staff, -- good, solid first-world work with endless multiples of community economic spin-off. If TSMC can make a go at it in the US, all top manufacturing can integrate as befits their profits - but it won't be a 4-year process.
Even Trump must know that nothing substantial can be done in this term so I can only imagine this is just some kind of damage limitation exercise with two possible outcomes in his mind.
To strongarm Tim Cook into announcing more on-shoring or to say that Apple and others aren't doing their part (in spite of tariffs) and then to start his usual blame game.
He'll say it's not his policies but US companies not doing enough. All completely oblivious to the fact that everything is of his own doing.
In a 'damned if you do and damned if you don't' scenario, Apple and everyone else should take the hit, short term (up to the end of Trump's term) and pass the tariff's onto consumers and label the increase as such.
The EU should do the same and apply reciprocal tariffs.
China has already stood it's ground and it looks like the EU is doing the same but in a politically different manner.
I doubt that stand-off would last long and Trump will blink, just like he did with China.
In such an unstable period, we might actually see Republicans begin to take a stand and push for changes in approach (with mid-term elections very much on their political horizons).
The idea of impeachment for gross mismanagement of policy or similar (both foreign and economic) surely must be something worth looking at. I know it's been whispered from time to time.
For Apple, as I've said for a while now, the perfect storm has emerged. Partly its own fault and partly out of its control.
It has plenty of room to reduce margins to stimulate sales in other world regions and offset a unit sale decline. Shareholders would have no option but to understand and swallow that bitter pill.
Any further concessions to Trump are likely to be met with further unreasonable demands.
I’m gonna get a triple whammy here, higher prices for all my Apple devices as they need replacing, a hit on the value of my Apple stock and another hit on the dividend payout.
But then I’m paying $1.55/gallon less for gas than I was at Rump’s inauguration. And other consumables have gone down equally as much percentage wise.
So maybe it’ll all work out.
Oh lord, don’t check the comments in the Wall Street Journal article about this, way too many people going on like “a $3,000 built in America iPhone is a lie, Apple builds MacBook Pros in Austin and it’s only $1,500!” Do they mean the Mac Pro? The device that is built in such a small scale?
Tim should just say “hey we’re working on moving iPhone production here” and just push the goalposts until he’s either out of office, or at least until the Midterms where hopefully the Democrats take control back in congress and take away his ability to issue tariffs on a whim. But there’s less than a week until June, he’ll probably change his mind several times. What they don’t want to do is hint that the tariffs will raise prices because he’ll throw a major fit
Oh no what would one of the richest most profile companies in the world do? How about stop using cheaper labor and move manufacturing back to the country that buys 40% of your products and oh wait makes 12% less profits.. I don't know how people are not pressuring companies like Apple to focus on the people instead of the profits.. I blame the Stockmarket. I t made us forget why we do what we do.
You don’t have any grasp of what is required to make millions of iPhones in a way that makes business sense for Apple, do you?
And Tim Apple thought his donation to Trump's campaign would buy him protection from this madness lol
Yeah, and the top buyers who bought $148 million of his worthless crypto thought they were getting "the world's most exclusive invitation" to dinner with Trump. What they got was shitty food, a choice of water or Trump wine to drink (not kidding) and 23 minutes of Trump rambling at a lectern, regurgitating what he has said about crypto a thousand times before, and you didn't have to pay to hear it. Then he was gone. To paraphrase an old saying, "No dinner (with Trump), no kiss, they just got f--ked."
BUT... this is what continues to astonish me with Trump. He will screw over anybody including, as we see here, some of his biggest fans who paid millions for this dinner--he didn't even stick around to pose for photos. And yet people keep sacrificing money, careers and reputations to throw themselves at his feet, only to find that they, too, get kicked to the curb when their usefulness to Trump runs out. How do people STILL not see who this malignant narcissist and con man is and has been his entire life?
Oh no what would one of the richest most profile companies in the world do? How about stop using cheaper labor and move manufacturing back to the country that buys 40% of your products and oh wait makes 12% less profits.. I don't know how people are not pressuring companies like Apple to focus on the people instead of the profits.. I blame the Stockmarket. I t made us forget why we do what we do.
Apple directly employs 90,000 people in the USA and supports a total of 2 million American jobs in all 50 states as a result of its business activities here. In addition, there are 275 Apple retail stores in America now, boosting traffic of higher income customers to scores of shopping malls acorss the country. How many companies can say that? Apple is one of THE greatest American business success stories in history and the orange idiot who bankrupted six businesses is hellbent on crippling it. Furthermore, we lack sufficient talent in this country to support this kind of high tech manufacturing, as TSMC is discovering with the chip fab plant they built in Arizona, where they're having to fly in teams from Taiwan who know what the f--k they're doing. And since when is it the government's business to dictate where an American company does its manufacturing? Trump will accomplish nothing other than crashing the economy as he sends prices soaring.
You don’t have to read between the lines with this President. Apple, Samsung, etc al…shower Trump with expensive gifts or give him a sea-can filled with cash; a giant gold plated Trump statue for the White House lawn. This should reduce the tariff down to 5%.
I have a good temporary solution. Apple should ban sales to republicans. If republicans don’t get the privilege to buy Apple products perhaps then they will bite back at Trump when they go through withdrawals.
Comments
You clearly have zero knowledge of cost and supply chains. First, this transition will take more than 6-8 years to complete. Moving a very complex production chain to the US will take years, from building factories to overcoming regulations and hiring and retaining talent (which isn't even there!). Then, most of the parts and raw materials will have to be imported, oh no wait - tariffs...sourced from the US. Most of the raw materials aren't even there. Anyway, basically you end up with semi-empty factories because no one wants to do the work or labor is too expensive, a lack of raw materials and parts, and $5000 phones.
You are clinging on a past that no longer exists and doesn't make any sense today.
As for the "hood fight" you claim he is fighting... can I have a K?
To strongarm Tim Cook into announcing more on-shoring or to say that Apple and others aren't doing their part (in spite of tariffs) and then to start his usual blame game.
He'll say it's not his policies but US companies not doing enough. All completely oblivious to the fact that everything is of his own doing.
In a 'damned if you do and damned if you don't' scenario, Apple and everyone else should take the hit, short term (up to the end of Trump's term) and pass the tariff's onto consumers and label the increase as such.
The EU should do the same and apply reciprocal tariffs.
China has already stood it's ground and it looks like the EU is doing the same but in a politically different manner.
I doubt that stand-off would last long and Trump will blink, just like he did with China.
In such an unstable period, we might actually see Republicans begin to take a stand and push for changes in approach (with mid-term elections very much on their political horizons).
The idea of impeachment for gross mismanagement of policy or similar (both foreign and economic) surely must be something worth looking at. I know it's been whispered from time to time.
For Apple, as I've said for a while now, the perfect storm has emerged. Partly its own fault and partly out of its control.
It has plenty of room to reduce margins to stimulate sales in other world regions and offset a unit sale decline. Shareholders would have no option but to understand and swallow that bitter pill.
Any further concessions to Trump are likely to be met with further unreasonable demands.
BUT... this is what continues to astonish me with Trump. He will screw over anybody including, as we see here, some of his biggest fans who paid millions for this dinner--he didn't even stick around to pose for photos. And yet people keep sacrificing money, careers and reputations to throw themselves at his feet, only to find that they, too, get kicked to the curb when their usefulness to Trump runs out. How do people STILL not see who this malignant narcissist and con man is and has been his entire life?
Apple directly employs 90,000 people in the USA and supports a total of 2 million American jobs in all 50 states as a result of its business activities here. In addition, there are 275 Apple retail stores in America now, boosting traffic of higher income customers to scores of shopping malls acorss the country. How many companies can say that? Apple is one of THE greatest American business success stories in history and the orange idiot who bankrupted six businesses is hellbent on crippling it. Furthermore, we lack sufficient talent in this country to support this kind of high tech manufacturing, as TSMC is discovering with the chip fab plant they built in Arizona, where they're having to fly in teams from Taiwan who know what the f--k they're doing. And since when is it the government's business to dictate where an American company does its manufacturing? Trump will accomplish nothing other than crashing the economy as he sends prices soaring.