Associated Press, by Josh Boak
WASHINGTON (AP) – President Donald Trump on Friday threatened 25% tariffs on Apple products and 50% tax on all imports from the European Union, unless the iPhone was made in the US.
The threat provided via social media reflects Trump’s ability to disrupt the global economy with a burst of typing and the reality that his tariffs have not yet produced trade deals he is hoping for or the return of domestic manufacturing he has committed to voters.
The Republican president said he wanted to charge a higher import tax on goods from the longtime US ally, EU. This was a geopolitical rival that cut this month’s tariffs to 30%, allowing Washington and Beijing to negotiate. Trump was upset by the lack of progress in trade talks with the EU, which proposed to cut tariffs to zero on each other, even though the president publicly insisted on maintaining a 10% baseline 10% tax on most imports.
“Our discussion with them is not going anywhere!” Trump posted to the Society of Truth. “Therefore, we are recommending a 50% straight tariff on the European Union from June 1, 2025. If the product is constructed or manufactured in the US, there are no customs duties.”
The post was preceded by an import tax threat against Apple due to plans to continue manufacturing the iPhone in Asia. Apple is currently joining the White House crosshairs as it seeks to deal with the uncertainty and inflationary pressures unlocked by his tariffs on Amazon, Walmart and other major US companies.
“I have informed Tim Cook a long time ago that I expect the iPhone iPhones for sale in the United States to be manufactured and built in the United States, not in India or elsewhere,” Trump wrote. “If not, Apple will have to pay at least 25% of the customs duties to the US.”
Trump’s statement is important in that it suggests that the company itself will bear the tariff price, contradicts previous claims as it has deployed a series of aggressive tariffs over the past few months that foreign countries will bear the cost of import taxes. In general, importers pay customs duties, and costs are often passed to consumers in the form of higher prices.
In response to Trump’s tariffs on China, Apple CEO Tim Cook said earlier this month that most iPhones sold in the US during the current financial quarter come from India, while iPads and other devices are imported from Vietnam. After Trump rolled out tariffs in April, bank analysts estimated that a $1,200 iPhone in the US would jump from $1,500 to $3,500 in price.
The shares were sold after Trump’s post, with the S&P 500 index down about 1%. The market has developed the sensitivity of hair triggers to the US President’s statement. It often gets slump when he announces high tariffs and rallys when he retreats from those threats.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bescent tried to make some clarity in Trump’s posts in an interview Friday about the Fox News show “American Newsroom.”
Bessent said there is a “group action issue” because the EU has 27 member states represented by “this one group in Brussels,” and “the underlying countries don’t even know that the EU is negotiating on their behalf.”
The Treasury Secretary said he didn’t appear at the White House meeting that Cook attended this week, but he also spoke with Apple CEO this week. Bescent’s goal is to bring Apple’s computer chip supply chain to the US:
The heart of Trump’s debate on the EU is that the US operates a “completely unacceptable” trade deficit with 27 member states. Countries carry out a trade deficit when they import more goods than they export.
From the advantages of the EU Executive Committee, trade with the US is largely at a balanced level when both goods and services are included. As a global center for financial technology, the US operates trade surplus in services with Europe. This offsets some of the trade gap in commodities, resulting in an imbalance of 48 billion euros ($54 billion).
German Foreign Minister Johann Wadefal said the EU executive committee had “full support from its country to work to maintain access to the US market.”
“I don’t think such tariffs will be useful to anyone, but they will only lead to economic development that both markets are struggling,” Wadefl said in Berlin. “So we’re still relying on negotiations, supporting the European Commission, defending Europe and the European market, while simultaneously working to persuade us in the US.”
Trump’s aide said his tariff goal is to isolate China and strike a new deal with allies, but the president’s tariff threat undermines the logic of those claims. Not only could the EU face higher tariffs than China, but the bloc of member states could have been better by establishing a broad front with China and other countries against Trump’s trade policy, German economist Marcel Flatzschel said.
“The EU Commission and Germany’s strategy in the trade dispute with Trump are a complete failure,” Flasher, head of the German Institute of Economic Studies, said of X.
Mary Lovely, a senior fellow at the Institute of International Economics, said that the 50% tariffs in Europe are likely a “negotiation ploy” by Trump. She said Trump appears to believe the negotiations work by going to a “threat point” that could put self-harm at risk just to show how serious he is.
But Lovely suggests that in the long-term Trump approach, “the United States is an unreliable trading partner and operates on a whim, not on the rule of law.”
Trump is running hot and cold in relation to Apple. This is a sign that curling his favor with him may not necessarily protect the company from his rage. He essentially tells companies like Walmart to “eat” the costs of tariffs, rather than raising prices, even though they could squeeze profits and cause layoffs. He appears to be deploying similar pressures now to force Apple to accept the higher costs of relocating its supply chain.
Trump previously created exemptions for electronic devices imported from China to support companies such as Apple. He also individually threatened a 25% import tax on computer chips and was able to rewrite the fee schedule in a way that allowed Apple products to be exposed to tax.
Until recently, the US president repeatedly boasted about the $500 billion Apple had pledged to domestic investments in February as part of its development of artificial intelligence technology. However, he publicly opposed the company while speaking in Qatar last week.
“I had a bit of a problem with Tim Cook yesterday,” Trump told the audience. “I told him, “My friend, I treated you very well. You’re here for $500 billion, and now I can hear you build all over India. I don’t want to build you in India.”
Analysts were skeptical that Apple could quickly move its device manufacturing to the US. This is mainly because they have been embedding complex supply chains in China for decades to feed factories. But Ben Wood, chief analyst at UK-based research firm CCS Insight, also faces the challenge of addressing the “unpredictable nature of the current US administration.”
“Anytime, things can change overnight, and it’s very difficult for companies like Apple to plan their business,” Wood said. “Despite the best efforts of Apple’s leadership team, despite lobbying the US administration to treat the iPhone more favorably, Curveball can come out of nowhere and derail the plans they have.”
AP Writers Paul Weissmann, David McHugh of Frankfurt, Germany, Gay Amurson of Berlin, and Kelvinchan of London contributed to this report.
Original issue: May 23, 2025 8:32am EDT
