Apple has lost the title of the most valuable company on the stock exchange because investors fear the consequences of the China tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump for the iPhone group. The Apple share has lost more than a fifth of its value in the past few days. The number one on the stock market Olympus on Tuesday Microsoft became a market value of around $ 2.64 trillion (2.4 trillion euros). Apple was behind it with almost $ 2.6 trillion.
Most iPhones are produced in China. If you add up all customs measures of the Trump government, taxes of 104 percent will be due on imports from the People's Republic to the United States from Wednesday. Apple now wants to deliver iPhones from India to the United States, while CEO Tim Cook tries to achieve an exception to the tariffs, the “Wall Street Journal” wrote. In order to change long -term investments in the supply chains, the situation is still too unclear, it was said, citing informed people. Trump imposed on goods from India a custom of 27 percent.
Trump government wants to bring production to the USA
Meanwhile, the message from the White House is unmistakable: Apple can simply produce the iPhones for the American market in the United States. “Why do you build all of this in China? Why don't you do it here?” Asked Trump's Minister of Commerce Howard Lutnick weeks ago.
At the time, Lutnick replied that the workforce in China is cheaper, among other things: “Now there are robots that can do it.” In the United States, this will create “millions and million” of jobs – for example for construction workers and mechanics who are waiting for the robots. Finally, Lutnick raved: “The army of millions and millions of human beings that turn tiny screws in to produce iPhones – something like that will come to America.”
iPhone for $ 3500?
Industry experts who are familiar with Apple's supply chains quickly disassemble such mind games. If Apple would build its iPhones in a factory in West Virginia or New Jersey, the price of a device was $ 3500, warned analyst Dan Ives from the Wedbus investment company. If the group moved only ten percent of the supply chain to the United States, it would cost him three years and $ 30 billion, IVES estimated in the CNN news channel.
No other company is so affected by Trump's tariffs, emphasized the market expert. “That can change the future of Apple.” Needham analyst Laura Martin at CNBC pointed out that Apple took around three years to move 14 percent of iPhone production to India. Martin also assumes that the group will try to leave the prices for end customers in the United States unchanged.
Invested in China for 20 years
From the point of view of the market expert Craig Moffett from Moffett Nathanson, there is “no good answer” from Apple on the tariffs. The group has invested in building its current supply chains for 15 to 20 years – “and that is simply not to be recreated elsewhere”. It is not about pouring cement into the soil for a factory in the USA and ordering robots – because the US labor market alone gives the necessary qualifications and do not pay, Moffett argued from CNBC.
Trump's spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said on Tuesday that the president was “absolutely” believed that Apple could produce iPhones in the United States. Trump believes that the United States has the resources and workers.
