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Trump's new thought bubble: Make Apple manufacture in the USA
Also ponders punishment tax for those who dare to offshore manufacturing
US Presidential wannabe Donald Trump has once again waded into matters technological, this time sketching an industry policy that would heavily tax US companies that don't manufacture on US soil.
Trump went on to single out Apple, saying that “we're gonna get Apple to start building their damn computers and things in this country, instead of in other countries.”
That thought bubble was made at about the 1:04 mark in this speech during a stream of comments explaining how Trump plans to “make America great again.”
One idea to do so is a mooted 35 per cent tax on companies that choose to manufacture offshore.
Trump's remarks are at odds with the Republican Party's free trade agenda and Apple's insistence it builds in China because the local populace offers it skills not available in the USA. If Cook was fibbing and cost is a factor, bringing the jobs home to the higher costs of the USA would hurt Apple's bottom line and it's hard to see how that would be good for the US economy, given Cupertino's colossal capitalisation.
The idea of making Apple manufacture at home is also denying reality: it's probably all-but-impossible to make the myriad components that go into iThings and Macs in one nation. If Trump was talking about just the final assembly process for Apple products, it's hard to see how bringing those jobs to the United States will restore it to greatness as even China is trying to move from manufacturing to higher-margin services industries.
None of which seemed to worry the audience at Liberty University, which enthusiastically cheered almost every one of Trump's pronouncements. ®