The Fruity Cargo Cult Apple wheeled out Tim Cook in Texas to polish its US manufacturing halo for Donald Trump’s tariff circus.
According to The Wall Street Journal, Jobs Mob chief executive Tim Cook took Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick around a Texas factory.
The Houston stop showcased a new manufacturing school and an assembly line that will begin producing Mac Mini computers later this year. The gear sits inside a Foxconn facility, which already makes AI servers for Job’s Mob.
The event paraded the cosy relationship between Job’s Mob and the Trump administration. President Donald Trump has been using the company’s US spending pledges as proof he is rebuilding American manufacturing.
Job’s Mob has so far avoided some of the administration’s nastier tariffs. Cook’s knack for handing Trump shiny trophies while keeping the real supply chain offshore remains one of Cupertino’s more profitable party tricks.
“Advanced manufacturing is where the puck is going. The problem is we need to train Americans,” Lutnick said.
“We believe in the promise of this nation, and we’re proud to put our money where our mouth is,” Cook said in a speech.
Most of Job’s Mob supply chain is still overseas, where the company can squeeze suppliers and keep margins fat. The school is meant to share some of its manufacturing knowledge with small and midsize US businesses.
Job’s Mob previously opened a classroom-based manufacturing programme in Detroit. The Texas version is meant to be more hands-on, which sounds marvellous until you remember the iPhone is still not being built there.
The Mac Mini line takes up a new 170,000 sq ft space at Foxconn’s site. Sales of the desktop have grown in the past year as it has become popular with punters running AI models at home.
Lutnick’s visit was part of a weeklong roadshow promoting increased American manufacturing. He had already done the rounds with Toyota and Ford Motor to wave the flag over domestic car production.
Trump has pushed Job’s Mob to make iPhones in the US, but the company has announced no such plan. Instead, it is expanding iPhone assembly in India.
The administration has tried to use Job’s Mob’s enormous device-parts budget to pressure suppliers into making domestic investments. Along with other companies, Job’s Mob committed to buy chip wafers from TSMC’s new Arizona facility, expected to cost more than $200 billion.
This year Job’s Mob struck a deal with US chip company Intel to make some device chips. Chipzilla was already close to Lutnick, who led a US government initiative to invest $9 billion for a 10 per cent stake.
Job’s Mob said it would spend $30 billion on domestically made chips from Broadcom.
Cook has perfected a business model that keeps Job’s Mob capital budget lean while suppliers do the expensive sweating. Since 2023, its total capital expenditure has been less than Amazon, Microsoft and Google each spent in their most recent quarter.
At the Houston plant, Foxconn is doing most of the capital spending to build the assembly lines. Job’s Mob is mainly promising to buy the kit that comes out of them.
Job’s Mob has made ever-larger investment promises to the White House. The latest is a pledge to invest $600 billion domestically over four years.
That figure includes spending already earmarked for existing US operations, including pay for corporate and retail staff. It includes components Job’s Mob was already going to buy from US suppliers.
