“We’re going to get Apple to build their damn computers and things in this country instead of in other countries.”
Thus spoke Trump to an assembled crowd an liberty yesterday as part of his plan to make America great again. And while it might seem odd to focus on Apple’s damn computers for two reasons. For one thing of all the things Apple’s makes oversees – computers are one of the few on the list that are actually assembled in the U.S. – Austin Texas to be specific, the Mac Pro.
Tim Cook, in fact, helpfully tweeted a picture of that assembly line yesterday .
The other somewhat odd part of that quote is that it assumes that Apple is primarily a computer company that makes “some other things” – odd since it is actually those damn iPhones that Apple grew to be the biggest company in the world on the back of. And also those are entirely assembled by Foxconn (though notably the complicated microchips that go into them are mainly made in Korea and the United States).
Bringing Apple back has been something of a longer term focus for Trump.
“We have to bring Apple — and other companies like Apple — back to the United States. We have to do it. And that’s one of my real dreams for the country, to get … them back. We have a great capacity in this country,” Trump wrote in his 2012 book Crippled America.
How exactly Trump hopes to make this happen is a unknown of course – the candidate has noted in the past that he would consider placing a massive 35 percent tax on good manufactured in China – in an attempt to subtly persuade American companies that it is in their best interest to manufacture at home.
“Free trade is good. But we have to do it [force them back to the US]. Or we won’t have a country left,” Trump noted even handedly.
