Apple pledges $500 billion in US investments to please Trump

Apple has established a tradition: every four years, in the first months of the new administration, the company headed by Tim Cook releases a statement promising multi-million dollar investments in the US and the creation of 20,000 jobs during the new government's term. An announcement that this year has been used by Donald Trump to show that his plan to impose tariffs to attract production to the US is working.

Several days after Trump and Cook met in the Oval Office, the Cupertino firm has promised to invest 500 billion euros in the US to install Artificial Intelligence servers, build a new server manufacturing plant in Houston, create a supplier academy in Michigan and make more purchases from its usual suppliers in the country.

The amount promised is in line with the $350 billion promised to Trump in February 2017 and the $430 billion pledged to Joe Biden in 2021 . In fact, when adjusted for inflation over that time, it’s basically the same amount . And the promise to hire 20,000 new workers is exactly the same as the one in the previous two statements. For comparison, between 2016 and 2019, the firm hired 10,000 people in the US, so it’s entirely possible that those 20,000 new contracts are the average number of signings that the company expects in each five-year cycle .

Trump, for his part, has assured that this decision is due to the fact that Apple "does not want to pay tariffs," although he has not mentioned anything about the manufacturing of iPhones, which is still based in China and other Asian countries. The president has boasted that these investments are due to "faith in what we are doing," even though they are similar to those that Apple has been doing systematically for the last decade.

"We are optimistic about the future of American innovation and are proud to build on our long-standing U.S. investments with this $500 billion commitment to our country's future," Cook said in a statement.

During Trump's first term, Cook managed to convince him not to impose tariffs on the iPhone by arguing that the tax would benefit competitors like Samsung . Apple also made multiple announcements during Trump's first term about US investments and credited Trump with manufacturing the Mac Pro in Texas, despite the computer factory having been there since 2013.

In return, Apple was able to retain its high profit margins without having to significantly raise product prices during Trump’s first term. All signs point to Apple adopting a similar tactic, selling its normal investments as something new and unexpected and attributing them to the new president’s policies .

Cook was one of several chief executives of major US technology companies who attended Trump's inauguration in Washington. He also met with Trump at his Mar-a-Lago Club in Florida after his election victory in November.

Apple said it will work with Taiwan's Foxconn to begin producing the servers that power the cloud component of Apple Intelligence in Houston this year . This means relocating some production that had previously been overseas. Those servers use advanced M-series chips already found in the company's Mac computers, but those chips will continue to be produced in Taiwan.

Apple will also expand data center capacity in Arizona, Oregon, Iowa, Nevada and North Carolina, all states where Apple already has plants. The 20,000 new jobs will focus on research and development, silicon engineering and artificial intelligence.