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Donald Trump boasted in a new interview about how Apple’s CEO groveled to him after the former president announced tariffs and then gifted him the first Macbook Pro made in the USA.
During an interview with Bloomberg Businessweek, Trump discussed his dealings with Apple while he served as president and his quest to bring manufacturing jobs back to the US. In the wide-ranging interview, Trump talked several aspects of business, tech and his reelection, including his proposal to drop the corporate tax rate to 15 percent and how he now longer wants to ban TikTok.
Trump detailed how Apple CEO Tim Cook had requested to see the former president in 2019 after Apple Inc. looked ready to be the victim of his trade war with China. The former president had announced a 25 percent import tariff, and refused an exemption for Apple.
“Apple will not be given Tariff waiver, or relief, for Mac Pro parts that are made in China,” he wrote on X – formerlyTwitter – at the time. “Make them in the USA, no Tariffs!”
Trump told Bloomberg that following this announcement Cook had reached out privately and asked to “come in” and meet with him – a “gesture of respect” that the former president had appreciated.
“He said to me, ‘I need help, you have tariffs of 25% percent and 50 percent [on Apple products imported from China],’” Trump told the outlet. “He said, ‘It would really hurt our business. It would destroy our business, potentially.’”
Trump had previously promised to bring manufacturing jobs back to the US. He told Bloomberg that during their meeting, he had told Cook to expand domestic production.
“I said, ‘I’m gonna do something for you guys,’” Trump said, “‘but you have to build in this country.’” Four months later, in November, Apple announced it was beginning construction on a campus in Austin.
“Building the Mac Pro, Apple’s most powerful device ever, in Austin is both a point of pride and a testament to the enduring power of American ingenuity,” Cook said, in a press release announcing the project.
“With the construction of our new campus in Austin now underway, Apple is deepening our close bond with the city and the talented and diverse workforce that calls it home.
“Responsible for 2.4 million American jobs and counting, Apple is eager to write our next chapter here and to keep contributing to America’s innovation story.”
Cook then gifted Trump a $5,999 Mac Pro, one of the first made at the Texas factory, the former president said.
Elsewhere in the interview, Trump rowed back on the previous suggestion that he would ban Chinese-owned social media platform TikTok, seemingly in part because of the hardship it would bring to Facebook owner Mark Zuckerberg.
Trump was banned indefinitely from Facebook in the aftermath of the January 6 attack on the US Capitol.
“Now [that] I’m thinking about it, I’m for TikTok, because you need competition,” he told Bloomberg. “If you don’t have TikTok, you have Facebook and Instagram—and that’s, you know, that’s Zuckerberg.”
