【By Guan察者网, Ruán Jiāqí】

The Trump administration continues to pressure Apple Inc. to move its manufacturing back to the United States. According to the U.S. Consumer News and Business Channel (CNBC), on Monday local time, Peter Navarro, the White House trade advisor, criticized Apple's CEO Tim Cook during a live interview with the media, accusing him of continuing to rely on China for producing iPhones.

According to the video from the program that day, Navarro first spent almost half of the program time criticizing Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell for refusing to cut interest rates, claiming that he hindered the so-called "synergy effect" brought by Trump economics, causing the national debt to soar, and calling him the "worst Fed chairman in history," urging the Fed Board to intervene.

The program then turned to discuss the issue of tariffs. With the deadline for the so-called "reciprocal tariff" negotiations approaching, Navarro claimed that negotiations with various countries were progressing smoothly, and tariff revenues were pouring into the United States, with trillions of investments being used to build factories and create jobs, and he was very satisfied with the current direction of development.

While Navarro was boasting endlessly, the host interjected, saying, "But there is one thing that makes me uneasy. There is a great American company that has created 2.9 million jobs for our country, that is Apple."

When the host pointed out that "it seems no matter where Apple goes, they are required to pay high taxes," and asked, "What exactly does (the Trump administration) want?" Navarro said in a mocking tone, "Looking back at Trump's first presidential term, Tim Cook has always been asking for more time to move his factories out of China. I mean, this is the longest soap opera in Silicon Valley."

"The thing I'm dissatisfied with Tim Cook is that he has never really taken action to do this," Navarro said, adding that he found it hard to understand why Apple had not moved its manufacturing operations back to the United States or transferred its complex supply chains back to the U.S.

He continued, "In my view, with new advanced manufacturing technologies and the development of artificial intelligence, I can't imagine that Tim Cook cannot produce his iPhone in other parts of the world as well as in the United States."

Navarro's remarks angered the host, who became emotionally agitated and slammed the table, saying, "How about this: Apple is a great company, a treasure of our country. They want to move to India, we respect this decision. Of course, we hope they can do more, but they have already invested $55 billion in the domestic market, what else do you want from this excellent American company?"

Navarro awkwardly smiled and tried to change the subject, "We can't solve the Apple issue on this show today. What I'm really concerned about is the current actions of the Fed."

CNBC reported that before Navarro made these remarks, President Trump, who had been focusing on promoting domestic manufacturing, had been escalating his critical comments against Apple for several months.

Apple plans to produce most of the iPhones for the U.S. market in India by the end of 2026, which has been repeatedly criticized by Trump. In May, Trump issued another latest threat, demanding that the company manufacture iPhones in the United States, otherwise it would be subjected to at least a 25% tariff.

However, the high labor costs in the U.S. make it impractical to produce iPhones in the U.S. A May analysis by the Morgan Stanley U.S. Public Policy team showed that Trump may have the legal authority to increase tariffs on foreign-made iPhones, but this will not change Apple's overseas production strategy.

The New York Times previously reported that although Apple has accelerated the production of iPhones in India, it still assembles most of the complex components of iPhones in China, including screens and face recognition technology modules.

These components go through a process called "pre-assembly" before being transported to India, and finally assembled into an iPhone there. Therefore, the final product can claim to be assembled in India, but in fact, most of the work is done in China.

Notably, at this point in time, recently, Patrick McGee, a business journalist based in San Francisco for the Financial Times, in his new book, traced Apple's entry into the Chinese market since the 1990s, made the distorted view that Apple is "trapped in China," and also promoted the arrogant conclusion that "without Apple, China would not be China today."

According to Hong Kong media South China Morning Post, on March 3rd, at an event held at the Washington-based think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies, this viewpoint was opposed by many Chinese research experts.

"If everything could be done over again, would they (Apple) make different choices?" Harvard Business School professor Meg Rithmere believes the answer is likely no. She added, "China is experiencing a huge wave of innovation and production, and missing this opportunity, Apple would not be what it is today."

Rithmere also pointed out that even without American companies like Apple and Tesla, Chinese companies "may" catch up with American companies, and now the Sino-U.S. business relationship is not only beneficial to China.

She said, "American companies want to stay in the Chinese market, not just for revenue and labor, but actually to learn and understand their competitors' moves."

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Original: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7524524490055942692/

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