He has one arm being pulled by Donald Trump and the other by Xi Jinping, with his back pressed against a brick wall.
Tim Cook, the head of Apple Corporation, is in a pickle of his own making, despite having pulled in trillions of dollars as head of one of the richest iconic companies in the world.
Strangely, Jensen Huang, the founder of Nvidia, seems to want to do the same thing as Tim Cook.
Patrick McGee just published a book, Apple in China: The Capture of the World’s Greatest Company, which tells the story of Apple investing in China over the last 20 years, first with production of the iPod in 2006, and later ramping up production of the most lucrative product in history: the iPhone.
The monumental success of the iPhone would never have been possible without the brilliance of Steve Jobs and the design genius of Jony Ive, coupled with the managerial and manufacturing skill of Tim Cook.
As remarkable as Jobs and Ive were, McGee argues in his book that it was Cook’s decision to invest billions upon billions of dollars in China to build the infrastructure and train the workers to manufacture the iPhone.
When Cook began making the phone in China, Xi was not yet in power. Barack Obama was soon to become President in the US, and people in America did not see China as an enemy dedicated to becoming the preeminent power in the world. We were partners, and American manufacturing saw enormous potential in building plants in China and raking in the money.
Apple was dedicated to taking advantage of China’s perfect combination of business acumen and cheap but talented people, some of whom were willing to work for three or four months and then go back to the fields in the country.
Apple devoted thousands of engineers to organize and train workers, and billions to spend on specialized machinery to expedite the manufacturing. China provided brilliant partners like Foxconn who knew the territory.
Apple took full advantage, but so did China, scooping up everything Apple could give them. More than any other company, Apple willingly developed the crucial infrastructure to make high-quality goods that the world’s people would stand in line to buy for a premium.
Apple and China became co-dependent. Xi understood this when he took power in 2013, with grand dreams of surpassing the U.S. not just in manufacturing but also in building things of high-value, like electric cars, robots, and semiconductors—as well as phones.
By the 2020s, Tim Cook realized what had happened, but the Chinese infrastructure was his golden handcuffs. China was also a huge customer.
In 2024, Trump retook power, and China became America’s top enemy. Tariffs were Trump’s major weapon against China. Apple was stuck in the middle.
Donald Trump wants an American-built iPhone. Cook knows that’s utterly impossible. He can cajole and offer lucrative inducements to Trump, but that cannot move the ball. He can get concessions, but Apple is essentially a prisoner of China’s control of the infrastructure it needs.
Cook is building some phones in India, but Apple sold 233 million phones in 2023, slightly fewer than Samsung, but much more profitable. China’s Huawei makes a high-quality phone and has a big piece of the Chinese market.
Apple’s stock is down 15% in 2025. Warren Buffett sold most of his enormous investment, and Cook has little choice other than trying to wait out Trump.
And now, Jensen Huang, of Nvidia, wants to build AI chips in China and also make them an enormous customer. China and Xi would welcome them, but so far approvals from the U.S. have not been forthcoming.
I find Huang’s desire to set up shop in China after seeing Apple’s troubles, the political furor in America, and his personal history of being shipped to Tacoma with his brother from Taiwan when he was 9 to live with his uncle, and not be reunited with his parents for 2 years…curious.
Huang knows China, but the allure of the Chinese market and infrastructure is apparently provocative.
Huang has already engineered a deal to build a factory in the Middle East. Certainly, some of those chips will end up in China. Seemingly, he believes that if he does not produce in China, a homegrown product will harvest the enormous profit instead.
But I think he would be well-advised to discuss the downside with Tim Cook rather than investing billions in the China that separated him from his family.
Question: What products do you buy because they are Made in America?
4 Comments
I would rather buy Whirlpool refrigerators made in the USA than LG or Chinese product. I would not pay 10 times more for an American built iPhone if there was such a thing.
Lloyd,
I have a GE refrigerator that was made in Louisville, KY. Haier Company of Qingdao, China has owned GE-Appliances since 2016. You probably have an iPhone made by Foxconn in China, but corporate headquarters of Apple is in Cupertino, CA. Which one of us has an American product?
It’s irreversibly a world economy on a planet with instant information where you can be anywhere virtually in a nanosecond and physically in 24 hours. It is up to all commerce to distribute labor and capital where it makes sense. This renders “country of origin” a fuzzy question as a commentator above observed. That being noted, I like Michigan blue berries and craft beer.
Love the commrnts Robert and Russ. Both of you are made in America and good friends.
Regarding Michigan blueberries, we get ours from the Bumbleberry Farm in South Haven in early August when we go on our annual family trip. Unfortunately they are pretty picked over. Ah, the pleasure is in the picking with the clan, aged 3 to ,80 even if the berries are skimpy.
I eat blueberries year round because I like them and they supposedly keep cancer away. Probably the best are jumbos from Mexico in December but a new entrepreneurial company called Fruitist is supposedly developing a new strain of blueberries that they will grow in California snd distribute nationally. Let’s hear it for the American spirit and American honeycrisp apples.