Apple CEO Tim Cook [left] with Donald Trump [right] at a Mac Pro factory. The Trump tariffs could financially hit Apple's chip production partnership with TSMC, after the President insisted the import taxes will be applied to semiconductors and other specific industries in the near future.
During his re-election campaign, President Donald Trump pushed an agenda to bring more manufacturing to the United States via tariffs. While Apple has so far escaped the prospect of dealing with the tariffs directly, that may not last for long. In a Monday speech at an Issues Conference at the Trump National Doral Resort in Miami, Florida, Trump discussed a range of topics, but spoke at length about tariffs.
After mentioning applying tariffs on vehicles imported from Mexico, Trump mentioned the placement of "tariffs on foreign production of computer chips, semiconductors," and pharmaceuticals. This is all in a bid to "return production of these goods to the United States," the C-Span video of the speech reveals.
"They left us and went to Taiwan, which is about 90% of the chip business," Trump insisted. "And we want them to come back." This refers to TSMC, the Taiwanese chip giant that Apple relies on for its chip production. However, Trump wants to accomplish this using tariffs rather than incentives.
"We don't want to give them billions of dollars like this ridiculous program Biden has," Trump says, referring to the billions paid out from the Chips Act. This includes $6.6 billion awarded by the U.S. Commerce Department to TSMC in April to build another chip production facility in Arizona.
