White House says Apple to invest billions in US manufacturing
The investment is expected to be announced on Wednesday.
White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett said Apple was likely to make an investment announcement on Wednesday, as he discussed the financial pledges made by companies and countries under US President Donald Trump.
'They're moving here in droves. This is trillions and trillions of dollars of commitments for people to build new factories here. In fact, you're likely to see one today from Apple,' Hassett said in an interview with Fox Business Network.
Hassett did not elaborate further.
The investment will help move key parts of the Cupertino, California-based tech giant's supply chain to the US, Bloomberg News reported, but details on the specifics were sparse.
'Today's announcement with Apple is another win for our manufacturing industry that will simultaneously help reshore the production of critical components to protect America's economic and national security,' Assistant White House Press Secretary Taylor Rogers said in a statement.
The president is slated to make an announcement at 4:30pm in Washington (20:30 GMT), according to the White House, which gave no specifics about the deal with the tech giant.
The latest investment
Apple said in February that it would spend $500bn in US investments in the next four years, which would include a giant factory in Texas for artificial intelligence servers and the addition of about 20,000 research and development jobs across the country.
Apple has many times pledged investments in the US in the last decade. In 2018, during Trump's first term, the company pledged $350bn. In 2021, under former President Joe Biden, Apple announced a $430bn investment.
The investment comes after Trump warned that he would hit Apple with a 25 percent tariff if it did not move its manufacturing efforts to the US. Analysts have said such a shift is not realistic.
Dan Ives at Wedbush Securities said in a note that it would take at least five to 10 years to shift production to the US, meaning consumers would pay as much as $3,500 for an iPhone.
'We believe the concept of Apple producing iPhones in the US is a fairy tale that is not feasible,' Ives had previously said.
Apple did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
In April, Apple had announced plans to move to India the assembly of the majority of the phones it sells to the US by the end of next year in an effort to reduce its reliance on China as the trade war between the US and China heats up. But Trump's ire has now shifted to India and he has slapped the country with a 50 percent tariff over imports of Russian oil. It's not clear if the latest developments will impact Apple's India plans.
Apple's stock surged on the looming US investment announcement. The company, which is traded under the ticker symbol APPL, is up more than 3.8 percent since the market opened as of 10:15am in New York (14:15 GMT) on Wednesday.
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