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Apple may have only one way out of the rock and a hard place it finds itself in during President Donald Trump’s second administration, CNBC’s Jim Cramer said Thursday. “Unless [Apple CEO Tim Cook] builds some plant here to make phones, I don’t think it is going to end,” Cramer said on “Squawk on the Street,” referring to pressure from Trump. Cramer’s comments Thursday came after Trump publicly criticized Apple’s plans to move more iPhone production to India , where tariffs are expected to be much lower than in China. Currently, about 90% of iPhones are assembled in China, according to analyst estimates — a concentration that has once again become problematic for Apple. Upon his return to the White House, Trump reignited a tariff war with China even more aggressive than his first battle, which began in 2018 and culminated in a January 2020 trade deal with the world’s second-largest economy. While the latest tensions between Washington and Beijing started to cool Monday, with triple-digit tariff rates on each other’s goods temporarily suspended, Trump has not wavered in his desire to see American companies bring manufacturing back to the U.S. “I had a little problem with Tim Cook yesterday,” Trump said Thursday . “I said to him, ‘My friend, I treated you very good. You’re coming here with $500 billion, but now I hear you’re building all over India.’ I don’t want you building in India.” In February, Apple announced a $500 billion investment in the U.S. , including plans to open a factory that builds artificial intelligence servers in Texas. Cook met with Trump the week before that commitment was unveiled and not long after Trump began ramping up tariffs on Chinese imports. Before this week’s agreement to temporarily lower tariffs on all Chinese imports, Trump in mid-April did grant exemptions to smartphones, semiconductors and other consumer electronics – a move heralded as a win for Apple at the time. Nevertheless, the Trump administration has launched a national security inquiry that is seen as a precursor to implementing so-called sectoral tariffs on chips and other electronics. Members of the Trump administration have mentioned iPhone production when discussing their trade goals. “We all hold our iPhones, which we love. Why do they have to be made in Taiwan and China?” Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said in a CNBC interview in early April. “Why can’t those be made with robotics in America?” Lutnick added, “You know what Donald Trump has said? They’re going to be made in America.” Tech Industry experts and Wall Street analysts have cast doubt on the feasibility of a “Made in USA” iPhone. Among the reasons: Much of the electronics supply chain is concentrated in East Asia, and the higher cost of labor in the U.S. — combined with worker availability here — could make the device much more expensive. Cramer on Thursday acknowledged the complexities of relocating iPhone production to the U.S., but suggested that it does not appear to be top of mind for Trump. “I am saying that the president doesn’t care whether they make or lose [money] on the phone. He wants a plant here to make phones,” said Cramer, whose Charitable Trust portfolio has owned a stake in Apple for more than a decade. When Cramer’s “Squawk on the Street” co-host David Faber responded by saying the company’s goal must be to Make Money, Cramer said: “Sometimes you just get had.” Cook has been widely praised for how he cultivated a relationship with Trump during his first term, as Apple generally avoided the kind of public attacks that the then-president lobbed at the likes of Club name Amazon and Alphabet ‘s Google, which still faces regulatory headwinds . While he did publicly pressure Apple to make products in the U.S. at that time, Trump also praised Cook himself. “That’s why he’s a great executive,” Trump said in August 2019. “Because he calls me, and others don’t.” Trump’s public posture toward Apple, at least, has been different this time around. And, for investors, that has made it a more difficult stock to own compared with previous years, Cramer wrote in a column for CNBC Investing Club subscribers last month. On Thursday, Cramer said he would have thought that Apple’s $500 billion commitments were sufficient to shift Trump’s ire elsewhere. “How many other things can they do in America that makes it so it’s a moot point” on iPhone production? He added, “I think this is a to-be-continued discussion.” Apple and the White House did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.
A sign advertises the iPhone 16e inside an Apple store in San Francisco, California, US, on Wednesday, April 30, 2025.
David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Apple may have only one way out of the rock and a hard place it finds itself in during President Donald Trump’s second administration, CNBC’s Jim Cramer said Thursday.
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