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President Donald Trump said he spoke to Apple (AAPL-0.39%) CEO Tim Cook on Monday, just after he announced a 90-day pause on new tariffs between the U.S. and China and sharp rollbacks on existing duties.
Trump said Cook, whose company stood to lose hundreds of millions each quarter from the U.S.-China trade war, pledged to raise his already announced investment of $500 billion in the U.S. that’s meant to support domestic manufacturing and artificial intelligence.
“He’s going to be building a lot of plants in the United States for Apple,” Trump said from the White House. “And we look forward to that.”
Trump described his apparent conversation with Cook just a few hours after The Wall Street Journal reported that Apple will likely be raising iPhone prices, but is tying the hikes to design changes and new features to avoid all talk of the trade war.
Apple CEO Tim Cook, who attended Trump’s inauguration, has avoided taking a harsh stance on the president’s trade war. Reports said that iPhone prices could rise thousands of dollars under Trump’s original plan, and Apple reportedly flew in a large stock of its phones before the new tariffs were set to take place. Cook also said more iPhones sent to the U.S. would come from factories in India.
Apple plans to release a new iPhone in the fall, The Journal reported, and the more premium models will remain manufactured in China.
The Trump Administration has said it wants Apple to move iPhone production to the U.S. The company is reportedly trying to figure out if it could start making its phones domestically, but that process would take years, and many analysts have said it would be all but impossible without the price at least doubling.