In a sharp critique, White House trade advisor Peter Navarro accused Apple CEO Tim Cook of dragging his feet on shifting production out for CCP-controlled China, labeling the prolonged delay “the longest running soap opera in Silicon Valley.” This comes as President Donald Trump intensifies pressure on Apple to bolster domestic manufacturing, spotlighting the company’s slow progress in relocating its production lines.
Annie Palmer for CNBC:
“Going back to the first Trump term, Tim Cook has continually asked for more time in order to move his factories out of China,” Navarro said in an interview on CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street.” “I mean it’s the longest-running soap opera in Silicon Valley.”
President Donald Trump has in recent months ramped up demands for Apple to move production of its iconic iPhone to the U.S. from overseas. Apple’s flagship phone is produced primarily in China, but the company has increasingly boosted production in India, partly to avoid the higher cost of Trump’s tariffs.
Trump in May warned Apple would have to pay a tariff of 25% or more for iPhones made outside the U.S. In separate remarks, Trump said he told Cook, “I don’t want you building in India.”
Navarro said Cook isn’t shifting production out of China quickly enough.
“With all these new advanced manufacturing techniques and the way things are moving with AI and things like that, it’s inconceivable to me that Tim Cook could not produce his iPhones elsewhere around the world and in this country,” Navarro said.
MacDailyNews Take: China has been an issue, for Apple and everyone else, for many years. Decades, even. But, when you’re a one-trick pony like Tim Cook and China is/was your one-trick, the going is bound to be slower than frozen molasses.
The time to accelerate plans to move production out of China was November 9th 2016, but, hey, six years late is better than never! – MacDailyNews, December 4, 2022
See also:
• How Tim Cook’s Apple may have undermined America’s lead in technological innovation and even its national security – June 17, 2025
• Apple’s China detox is long overdue – May 13, 2025
• Inside Apple’s belated attempt to free itself from China – April 5, 2023
• Tim Cook and Apple bet everything on China. Oops. – March 2, 2020
In order to responsibly mitigate risk, Apple needs to break its China addiction. – MacDailyNews, March 2, 2020
Imagine if Apple had over the past several years invested some of the $400 billion they’ve spent on buybacks on diversifying production, you know, in case of trade issues, natural disasters, health emergencies, foreign government actions, etcetera. — MacDailyNews, February 27, 2020
MacDailyNews, “Tim Cook firmly latched Apple onto China’s CCP teat. What’s his plan for weaning it off?,” November 2, 2022:
In 2016, Apple’s “Operations Genius,” Tim Cook, secretly signed a secret agreement with the human rights-abusing Chinese Communist Party estimated to be worth more than $275 billion. Cook promised that Apple would do its part to develop China’s economy and technological prowess via infrastructure investments, business deals, and worker training in exchange for the CCP quashing its surge of what promised to be crippling regulatory actions against Apple, The Information reported last December.
Many years before that, some two decades ago, it was Cook who spearheaded Apple’s move to make products “Designed in California,” but “Assembled in China.”
Since Cook, 62, made his $275 billion secret deal with the CCP five years ago, and as he now nears retirement age, Apple has made precious little headway in diversifying its production away from capricious, authoritarian China.
Why?
If the $275 billion wasn’t to buy Apple half a decade to free itself by diversifying its production away from China, mitigating risk, what was it for?
Longtime Apple analyst Gene Munster on Tuesday estimated that it would take as long as a decade for Apple to reduce its current near-total reliance on China to meaningful levels…
Tim Cook painted Apple into this corner. It worked marvelously well, until it didn’t.
A publicly traded company CEO’s job is to act in the best interest of its shareholders.
But, Apple’s operations don’t scream “genius” today. They scream “RISK!” But, you know, the market just loooves risk…
Apple shareholders and, in turn, Apple’s rubber-stamping Board of Lackeys, should hold one person responsible if this spiraling China dilemma continues deteriorate: Timothy D. Cook.
So, what’s Cook’s plan for getting the company out of this boxed-in predicament into which he placed it? Certainly Apple shareholders have a right to know. Hopefully, Cook has a better plan than simply cashing out and dumping this nightmarish quandary into the lap of Apple’s next CEO.
It’s smart for both Apple and Foxconn to diversify assembly outside of China. There’s no sense having all of your eggs in one basket. — MacDailyNews, April 2, 2019
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