The U.S. has shed 33,000 manufacturing jobs this year—but Tim Cook believes he has a solution.
The Apple CEO said his company’s recent $600 billion investment to build factories across the U.S. will create a “domino effect,” boosting manufacturing in the country.
“We can’t be everywhere. I wish we could, but we are putting $600 billion to work in the next four years,” Cook told CNBC’s Jim Cramer during a TV interview on Monday. “And so it is an extraordinary commitment.”
Cook suggested Apple’s “extraordinary commitment” over the next four years to build 79 factories in the states could bring more businesses to the communities they are built in.
“That’s the ripple effect,” Cook said. “There will be more companies coming. It’s a domino effect kind of thing.”
Apple has manufactured iPhones outside the U.S. since the product’s inception in 2007, with the vast majority of assembly taking place in China at massive Foxconn facilities. Foxconn, a Taiwanese multinational electronics contract manufacturer, has a Zhengzhou plant that alone employs roughly 350,000 workers, produces up to 500,000 iPhones a day, and helps drive large-scale economic growth in central China.
Apple produces about 80% of the iPhones purchased in the U.S. in China, but has reportedly been shifting supply chains to India to avoid tariffs to the tune of a $433 million chip deal. The Silicon Valley-based tech company shipped $2 billion worth of iPhones in March, a record for both IT company Tata and Foxconn, according to Reuters.
Apple had plans to shift assembly of most of the iPhones it sells to the U.S. by the end of 2026, Al Jazeera reported in April.
Now, Cook is betting big on U.S. manufacturing under the current administration, noting President Donald Trump’s objective to get “more and more manufacturing” domestically.
“I think most people look at [the investment] and say, ‘It’s great that you’re investing in America,’” Cook said of investor sentiment to the planned factory build out.
Despite Apple’s pledge to build out factories, Scott Bickley, an advisory fellow at Info-Tech Research Group, told Fortune the tech giant’s manufacturing hub will remain in Asia, because of factors like the overseas supplier concentration, workforce scale, and how expensive U.S. workers are compared to offshore labor.
“[These factors] all favor Asia remaining the core of iPhone manufacturing for the foreseeable future,” Bickley said.
John Belton, portfolio manager at financial services firm Gabelli Funds, told Fortune most of Apple’s $600 billion investment was already reflected in the company’s long-range financial planning.
“Re-architecting a complex supply chain takes time,” Belton said.
Manufacturing of certain components like cover glass and some chips will be reshored, rather than final assembly of the phones, which will remain in China—and to a lesser extent India, Belton added.
“This should all be viewed as more evolutionary than revolutionary for Apple’s global operations,” Belton said.
As for the point of bringing more manufacturing competition to local communities once these factories are built, recent reports have uncovered a clear obstacle for an industry revamp: There just aren’t enough skilled workers anymore. About 400,000 manufacturing jobs are currently unfilled, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
“There is still the problem of organizing the massive labor force required to assemble all those components into the finished iPhone,” Weldon Dodd, distinguished solutions engineer at Kandji, a software platform for managing and securing Apple devices for companies, told Fortune. “It’s difficult to imagine where in the U.S. Foxconn could find a market with 300,000 or more workers available to hire.”
Though, Amrita Bhasin, CEO of Sotira, an AI-powered e-commerce platform, told Fortune if Apple manages to pull off its build out, “it will put pressure on other tech or hardware companies in the U.S. to invest in the ‘made in America’ model.”
Jamie Meyers, senior securities analyst at Laffer Tengler Investments, told Fortune considering the manufacturing labor shortage and a complex global supply chain (Apple sources parts and materials from suppliers in over 40 countries), it would be impossible to replicate this domestically. However, the move will open up new manufacturing jobs.
“Whether Americans want those jobs is another question,” Meyers said.
And, if more competition comes from the factory build out, it will reflect the Trump administration’s push for domestic manufacturing, he said.
“Apple’s move into the United States was already planned and is now being touted because of the administration’s stance toward domestic manufacturing,” Meyers said. “We don’t think it’s Apple that will cause a domino effect, rather it is a response to domestic and international policies.”
Apple didn’t immediately respond to Fortune‘s request for comment.
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com
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