• Home
  • Latest
  • Fortune 500
  • Finance
  • Tech
  • Leadership
  • Lifestyle
  • Rankings
  • Multimedia

Trendingnow

1

Pentagon accuses Alibaba, Baidu and BYD, three of China's biggest companies, of supporting the Chinese military

2

'We are rapidly running out of time': Watchdog sounds Social Security alarm after 22% cut confirmed for 2032

3

Costco CEO Ron Vachris rose from forklift driver to the C-suite without a college degree: ‘Don’t chase a title’ is the career advice that got him there

1

Pentagon accuses Alibaba, Baidu and BYD, three of China's biggest companies, of supporting the Chinese military

2

'We are rapidly running out of time': Watchdog sounds Social Security alarm after 22% cut confirmed for 2032

3

Costco CEO Ron Vachris rose from forklift driver to the C-suite without a college degree: ‘Don’t chase a title’ is the career advice that got him there
LeadershipDonald Trump

The Big Risk of Donald Trump’s Fight With Apple

By
Mark Gimein
Mark Gimein
and
Money
Money
Down Arrow Button Icon
By
Mark Gimein
Mark Gimein
and
Money
Money
Down Arrow Button Icon
February 23, 2016, 9:27 AM ET
US-VOTE-REPUBLICANS-TRUMP
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a rally at Plymouth State University, February 7, 2016, in Plymouth, New Hampshire. / AFP / DOMINICK REUTER (Photo credit should read DOMINICK REUTER/AFP/Getty Images)Photograph by Dominick Reuter — AFP via Getty Images

“I would come down so hard on him — you have no idea — his head would be spinning all of the way back to Silicon Valley.” —Donald Trump, about Apple CEO Tim Cook

It seems that the more enemies Donald Trump makes, the more votes he gets, and as he races through the primary calendar Trump stepped up his campaign against one of his bigger targets: Apple. Trump’s calling for a boycott of Apple (and apparently a head-spinning knockout punch at the CEO) until Apple agrees to unlock the San Bernardino shooter’s phone.

Really, the Trump-Apple fight started before the San Bernardino shooting. It’s not just failing to unlock the phones that Trump thinks is un-American. It’s much of Apple’s way of doing business. A month ago, Trump promised that when he’s president, he’ll “get Apple to start building their damn computers and things in this country, instead of in other countries.” The message here is that Apple sells stuff here while making it abroad, and we shouldn’t stand for that.

That’s an argument brought out, in various forms, whenever politicians talk about how to create jobs. Unfortunately, the Donald approach fails in two ways: First, a trade war would hurt American companies (including Apple (AAPL) ) and their investors more than anyone else. And second, forcing Apple to make phones in the U.S. would likely do a lot less to create jobs than you might guess.

Let’s take trade. Apple does manufacture its products abroad. Cost is one reason for this. But so is expertise, as Cook has often pointed out. Once merely an inexpensive place to make things, China now has developed an expertise in manufacturing that’s unmatched anywhere else.

As China’s own industry has grown, something else has happened: China has become a very, very big market for U.S. companies. Apple’s sales in China last year totaled $58 billion. Overall, 60% of Apple’s $234 billion in sales came from outside the Americas. (You can see a breakdown, taken from Apple’s annual report, at the end of this post.) Apple doesn’t break out more detailed numbers for each country, but Apple probably sold more iPhones in China last year than in the United States.

So if you talk about building the damn computers in this country, it’s worth wondering if other countries will take a similar approach. Actually, stop wondering: They will. China has its own rising mobile phone makers — hello, Xiaomi — who will be happy to take over Apple’s production lines, and a government that (yes, like Trump) favors local manufacturers.

Now let’s say the U.S. is willing to forgo a large share of its foreign sales in favor of a “sell it here, build it here” philosophy. How many jobs does that create? One way of thinking about that is to compare it with the experience of Motorola, the phone manufacturer briefly owned by Google. With much fanfare, Motorola opened a Texas plant that reportedly employed about 2,000 workers and could manufacture 100,000 phones a week, or about 5 million a year.

Last year, Apple sold 231 million iPhones. It doesn’t break out how many of them were sold in the U.S., but we know that 40 percent of Apple’s revenue comes from the Americas — that includes Canada, Mexico, and all of South America, not just the United States. Let’s use the same number as a guesstimate for its phone sales; this would mean Apple sold about 92 million phones in the Western hemisphere. If Apple’s plants need the same number of workers as Google’s to produce the phones, we are talking about 35,000 or so jobs.

For comparison, Apple now has about 76,000 U.S. employees. Some of those are in retail stores, but many are in highly paid programming and research and developments jobs. Adding some factories would add a few of those (setting up factories takes specialized skills), but most of the assembly line jobs would not be very highly skilled or paid. Economically, it’s just a drop in the bucket, a much smaller factor than the tens of billions of dollars in sales Apple would give up in a “sell it here, build it here” world.

If you cut through the rhetoric, the real issue economic issue here is that even if Apple did make its phones in the U.S., it wouldn’t come close to creating as many jobs as the industrial powerhouses of previous decades. Those, by the way, don’t create as many jobs as they used to: General Motors had more than 700,000 workers two decades ago; now it’s at less than a third of that.

Technology companies do create good jobs, just not enough of them. This is a genuine 21st century problem, for which no one—least of all Trump— has offered a fix. Demands that Apple move a few factories from Shenzhen to Arkansas only underline how far away we are from solving it.

About the Authors
By Mark Gimein
See full bioRight Arrow Button Icon
By Money
See full bioRight Arrow Button Icon

Latest in Leadership

Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025

Most Popular

Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Fortune Secondary Logo
Rankings
  • 100 Best Companies
  • Fortune 500
  • Global 500
  • Fortune 500 Europe
  • Most Powerful Women
  • World's Most Admired Companies
  • See All Rankings
  • Lists Calendar
Sections
  • Finance
  • Fortune Crypto
  • Features
  • Leadership
  • Health
  • Commentary
  • Success
  • Retail
  • Mpw
  • Tech
  • Lifestyle
  • CEO Initiative
  • Asia
  • Politics
  • Conferences
  • Europe
  • Newsletters
  • Personal Finance
  • Environment
  • Magazine
  • Education
Customer Support
  • Frequently Asked Questions
  • Customer Service Portal
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms Of Use
  • Single Issues For Purchase
  • International Print
Commercial Services
  • Advertising
  • Fortune Brand Studio
  • Fortune Analytics
  • Fortune Conferences
  • Business Development
  • Group Subscriptions
About Us
  • About Us
  • Press Center
  • Work At Fortune
  • Terms And Conditions
  • Site Map
  • About Us
  • Press Center
  • Work At Fortune
  • Terms And Conditions
  • Site Map
  • Facebook icon
  • Twitter icon
  • LinkedIn icon
  • Instagram icon
  • Pinterest icon

Latest in Leadership

How the World Cup is a high-stakes stage for Big Tech’s AI push
NewslettersCIO Intelligence
How the World Cup is a high-stakes stage for Big Tech’s AI push
By John KellJune 10, 2026
3 hours ago
Anthropic accused of ‘secret sabotage’ as Claude Fable 5 silently limits capabilities for AI researchers and developers
AIAnthropic
Anthropic accused of ‘secret sabotage’ as Claude Fable 5 silently limits capabilities for AI researchers and developers
By Sharon GoldmanJune 10, 2026
5 hours ago
A 5-week course and a guaranteed job: Meta commits $115 million to solve the skilled-trades shortage stalling its AI buildout
Future of WorkMeta
A 5-week course and a guaranteed job: Meta commits $115 million to solve the skilled-trades shortage stalling its AI buildout
By Jacqueline MunisJune 10, 2026
5 hours ago
Xbox CEO Asha Sharma
SuccessCareers
Xbox’s CEO spent her early career taking out trash and selling coupon books—she says the secret to her rise was never obsessing over a dream career
By Preston ForeJune 10, 2026
7 hours ago
Boris Cherny, Head of Claude Code
SuccessHiring
The architect behind Claude Code reveals the three things Anthropic looks for in a good hire—and why people with low ego are a must
By Emma BurleighJune 10, 2026
8 hours ago
Meryl Streep says she was ‘ready to retire’ when the call for ‘Devil Wears Prada 2’ came—so she demanded they double her salary or nothing
SuccessThe Promotion Playbook
Meryl Streep says she was ‘ready to retire’ when the call for ‘Devil Wears Prada 2’ came—so she demanded they double her salary or nothing
By Orianna Rosa RoyleJune 10, 2026
8 hours ago

Most Popular

Pentagon accuses Alibaba, Baidu and BYD, three of China's biggest companies, of supporting the Chinese military
Asia
Pentagon accuses Alibaba, Baidu and BYD, three of China's biggest companies, of supporting the Chinese military
By Kate O'Keeffe and BloombergJune 8, 2026
2 days ago
'We are rapidly running out of time': Watchdog sounds Social Security alarm after 22% cut confirmed for 2032
Economy
'We are rapidly running out of time': Watchdog sounds Social Security alarm after 22% cut confirmed for 2032
By Nick LichtenbergJune 9, 2026
1 day ago
Costco CEO Ron Vachris rose from forklift driver to the C-suite without a college degree: ‘Don’t chase a title’ is the career advice that got him there
Success
Costco CEO Ron Vachris rose from forklift driver to the C-suite without a college degree: ‘Don’t chase a title’ is the career advice that got him there
By Preston ForeJune 8, 2026
2 days ago
Current price of oil as of June 9, 2026
Personal Finance
Current price of oil as of June 9, 2026
By Joseph HostetlerJune 9, 2026
1 day ago
Wall Street dumped nearly $1 trillion in tech stocks by midday—then clawed it back and bought peanut butter and paint
Investing
Wall Street dumped nearly $1 trillion in tech stocks by midday—then clawed it back and bought peanut butter and paint
By Eva RoytburgJune 9, 2026
1 day ago
Current price of silver as of Tuesday, June 9, 2026
Personal Finance
Current price of silver as of Tuesday, June 9, 2026
By Joseph HostetlerJune 9, 2026
1 day ago

© 2026 Fortune Media IP Limited. All Rights Reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy | CA Notice at Collection and Privacy Notice | Do Not Sell/Share My Personal Information
FORTUNE is a trademark of Fortune Media IP Limited, registered in the U.S. and other countries. FORTUNE may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website. Offers may be subject to change without notice.