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.
